Legacy
by The Urban Spaceman
Summary: Wade Wilson has lost everything; his health, his life, and the woman who'd shown him there was still a spark of goodness left in humanity. Finally and fully embracing the monster they have made him, he lets Deadpool take the wheel and sets out on a quest to spill the blood of the men who've taken everything he had.
1. Prologue

Legacy

 _1\. Prologue_

 _(in which you find out how the story ends)_

* * *

Comic book stories.

They're always larger-than-life. You don't read comic books yourself. You're too cool for that. And the stash of _Captain America_ mags under your mattress doesn't count, because Captain America is a true hero. The first patriot. The guy all the jocks want to be; so it's okay to read about the Cap, because it won't result in your face being used as a punch-bag in the locker room.

No, you don't read comics. But there's this kid who lives down the street… for simplicity's sake, let's call him Bob… and he's a bit overweight, and pimply. The jocks call him 'pizza-face', the girls blank him like he doesn't even exist, and even the audio-visual nerds get the hell out of Dodge whenever it looks like he might try to talk to them.

Bob's not your friend. Not really. But you let him hang out with you every once in a while, because, y'know… charity. And good karma. Plus, your own cool-factor is way up there. You're Doctor Freeze. No… you're the Fonze. So your rep can take the hit of being infrequently associated with Bob. Besides, there are perks. Bob's parents are loaded, and Bob's so keen to keep you sweet that whenever he comes over, all puffy-faced and sweaty because he's had to walk fifty yards, he brings a stash of delectables with him. Oreos. Cheesy Puffs. And if you're real lucky, a jar of crunchy peanut butter you can dip your Oreos and Cheesy Puffs _into._ Trust me, it's not as gross as it sounds.

There's not much you can talk to Bob about. He has no experience with girls (it probably wouldn't shock you to hear that Bob doesn't even know what girls _are_ ), he's not in to doing _outdoor_ things like any other young person your age enjoys (playing hoop, fishing, making out with girls, stealing cars)—and since this is 1985, computers don't exist yet.

 **Or** _ **do**_ **they?!**

Alright, fine. Computers exist, but you wouldn't recognise them. For twenty years, the most sophisticated thing you've been able to do is bounce a ball between two paddles. Pacman's been around for about five years now, and that's a novelty nobody will ever get bored of (believe me, it'll be the only game people will play for the next 12 years, and its sales, and money generated by said sales, will faaaar outstrip any silly future-games in which you fight against Nazis, or zombies, or zombie-Nazis, or zombie-Dragon-Nazis—)

 **Pssst! Call of Duty 26 hasn** **'t been invented in the future yet. Stop spoiling 2021 for everyone.**

 _In that case, I call future-copyright-dibs on zombie-Dragon-Nazis!_ Anyway, we digress.

 **Speak for yourself.**

It's 1985, and although computers exist, they're inordinately expensive. Especially when money's tight. Which it is for your family. And even though Bob has a computer (his folks are loaded, remember?) you're not allowed to go over there and play it, because ever since his mom caught you smoking out his bedroom window, she's labelled you a Bad Influence and banned you from stepping over her threshold. Bob's too nice a person to tell you about all the fun he's having playing Space Invaders, so you talk about the only other subject available.

 **Comic books.**

Comic bo— _hey! Stop stealing my lines!_

 **Get to the frigging point. Can** **'t you see we're losing the audience?**

 _What? No way. This is what they come here for! They enjoy the back-and-forth banter we provide for them, and our well-timed and sexy repartees. If they wanted some boring old story where people go from A to B to C in a straight line without having any sort of fun, they could go read one of Wolverine_ _'s snooze-fests._

 **Ooh, our old pal Wolvie. We should go crash one of his stories some time.**

 _Later. We have this thing to do first._

So anyway, you and Bob talk about comics. And after you're done talking about Captain America, Bob tells you about some of the other comics he reads. You know, the one where the fearless heroes, Poopypants McGee and the Wet-Dream Wonder, go on a fearless quest to thwart the Evil Doctor Von Doomenstein's evil plans to conquer the whole Earth with an evil army… only, in the process, they accidentally trigger a massive overload of Von Doomenstein's tachyon particle accelerator, sending both themselves and the unholy legions of evil tumbling through the very fabric of space-time, and only end up vanquishing said legions and returning to their own time by making alliances with other powerful super-humans whose awesome power awesomely fixes the fabric of reality and everybody is back in their own awesome worlds in time for Happy Days reruns and a brewski? You know that one, right?

All of Bob's stories are like that. He paints you these wild mental pictures in which there are so many characters doing so many implausible things that you're left thinking _whoa wait when did the and the what nazis and dragons and evil overlord of time killed by the sentient creator-god of the multiverse WHAT._

The stories are ridiculous. Because Bob gives you the exciting bits. He gives you the over-powered superheros ( _man, I hate those. Do you hear me, Cable? I hate you so much!_ _… Just kidding bro, I love ya really_ ). He gives you the chiselled men and the voluptuous women and the villains who almost always dress snazzy and have well-groomed goatees.

What Bob doesn't give you is the stale ennui. He doesn't tell you who woke up next to who, or who ate what for breakfast, or who was piloting the magical aircraft when it crashed ( **it wasn** **'t me, I swear!** ). He doesn't tell you whether it's raining, or snowing, or whether it's fry-yourself-on-the-beach weather. He doesn't tell you who gets badly maimed along the way, unless it's a maiming which affects continuity. Because even though all those things are there, on the page of the comic, for anybody to see… they're not important. They're ephemeral fluff. They are the building blocks of the action and the dialogue, which is all anybody really cares about in comic books.

Bob dumps you in the action. You're still trying to figure out just _how_ Evil Baron Doomenmeister or whatever managed to build that large hadron collider beneath Chicago without anybody noticing in the first place. And whilst it's all stewing inside your head, Bob does the worst possible thing, the most bastardly thing a person can do; he goes home. He dumps you in the shit and then leaves you to figure out what the hell just happened, on your own.

Welcome to my world, Reader. Watcher. Voyeur. Whoever and whatever you are. Now, let me paint a mental picture for you.

I'm standing inside a bunker. It's deep underground. We're talking _Stargate_ deep. Maybe even deeper.

The room in which I stand is cavernous. There are a lot of dead bodies inside it. You look around, and you wonder _how did all this blood come from these bodies?_ Then you see the _parts_ of bodies, strewn about like someone had a really bad chainsaw juggling accident. Arms here, over there a few legs, a pile of torsos littering the floor. The heads are… suspiciously absent. That's because they roll. You separate a head from its body and it'll bounce and roll, and if you take your eye off it you've lost it. That's why head-bowling has never been a popular mainstream sport.

You're struck by how similar these bodies look. They're all wearing the same uniform. It says _US Army_ on the breast pocket, though most of the corpses are too blood-soaked for you to read anything.

The carnage does not end here. Parts of the bunker are scorched; the soldiers had flamethrowers, those bastards. Bullet-holes riddle the walls, plaster blasted away here and there. Parts of the ceiling have caved in. Maybe some of the soldiers threw grenades? You'd be forgiven for jumping to that assumption.

Amidst the ceiling-dust and chips of plaster, and occasional stray bullets, you find curious little piles of metallic grey dust. There are at least as many piles as there are corpses. If you stopped to count them, you'd probably find that there are _more_ piles of metallic grey dust than corpses. And if you _really_ stopped to take a closer look, you'd notice that if you were able to put together all the grains of dust in one of the smaller piles, you might end up with something roughly handgun sized. The medium-sized piles? Yeah, there's enough dust in one of those piles to make something rifle-sized. And what about the daddy-bear sized piles o' dust? Well, Goldilocks, the flamethrowers had to go _somewhere_.

If you want to take a momentary break from all of this bloodshed and carnage, you can leave the bunker and go up to the surface for a few minutes, get yourself a breath of fresh air… but you won't find things much better up there. I won't bore you with details about the weather, or the local vegetation; you don't even need to know whether it's night or day. The only thing that matters, is there's enough light to see by. Enough light for you to see the very large piles of metallic dust which, conceivably, could have been jeeps at one point. And over there, where there's now a veritable mountain of the ubiquitous grey stuff? There's enough dust there to make a tank. Oh, and there are bodies and body-parts up here too, but you wanted a break from the gore… didn't you?

We're back in the chamber now. The air's clogged with the smell of blood and the clouds of dust which are slowly settling on all the dead peeps. Despite all of this death and destruction, I have only a few scratches and my healing factor's already working on those. Give it a few minutes and I'll be back to my healthy, cancer-ravaged self.

I'm standing in the middle of the chamber, barely able to take a step without standing on some guy's fingers. But I quite like the _crack_ and the _snap_ that finger-bones make when they break, so I don't care too much about where I'm walking. I can't bring myself to care about broken bodies and showing respect for the dead… it's not like they ever showed respect to me when I was alive. Not unless respect has reached a whole new level I'm not aware of… one that involves napalm.

I can't bring myself to care, because the world as I know it is ending, and I don't know how to handle it. My task is complete. My self-imposed mission of revenge has ended. I've meted out justice _and_ vengeance, enough to satisfy both angel and devil on my shoulders. I have waited for this day for months. _Years._ But now… my victory feels more hollow than I ever dreamed it would.

I'm watching as my best friend… hell, who am I kidding, my _only_ friend… puts herself willingly into a self-induced coma-type stasis field thing, possibly forever, just to prevent herself from 'maybe' accidentally destroying the whole world and every living thing on it.

Now, here's how it all began…

* * *

 _Wade_ _'s note: Hey, readers, it's me again! Been a while, huh? July 2014, if The Author's profile can be believed. I bet you're wondering why I've been gone so long. And if you aren't, please do. Well, you'd be gone for ages if you had to shoot your VERY OWN BRAND SPANKING NEW MOVIE. Amirite? The Author has just this very evening been to see my new movie, and totally loves it. Loves it so much that in celebration of seeing my fantastic self on the biggest of all screens (at least, the biggest of all screens on Earth—I'm betting Thanos has a MASSIVE screen to watch me on, but that guy overcompensates waaaay too much), The Author has decided to release the FIRST EVER CHAPTER of the THIRD EVER STORY which he and/or she has written involving yours truly. So, to the boring part:_

 _This awesome story (full of bad language and gore and sex and absolutely NO CABLE) is a sequel to my last story,_ _"Lazarus", which in turn was a sequel to "No I In Team" (in which The Author very nobly attempted to correct the HEINOUS things that those IDIOTS AT MARVEL did to me in Hugh Jackman's origin story). If you don't want to go and read those stories (you should, at the very least, read Lazarus), then ON YOUR HEAD BE IT. But don't worry, The Author will very cleverly wind snippets from Lazarus into this super-cool story about me, so you lazy voyeurs who don't want to read Lazarus at least have some idea about why I'm all about the vengeance in this story, and who all the OCs are._

 _Now, sit back, relax, and enjoy the sh_ _—oh wait, I_ _'m getting another message from The Author. Apparently, I'm to tell you that The Author really doesn't like releasing WIPs. WIPs? Sounds kinky. I got WIPed once. So, uh. anyway, this is a WIP. Something like 10.8 chapters have been written so far (plus 3.1 chapters of yet another origin-story spin off which is totally relevant and mandatory) but The Author will not be releasing any further chapters until this story is close to completion. Why tease you by publishing the first chapter now and then making you wait? Because The Author is a bad, bad person who likes to touch me inappropriately. And so that those of you clamouring for this sequel (and the one of you asking to be informed of when this sequel was published—YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE) can hit the goddamn FOLLOW STORY button and rest assured you will receive timely updates once publishing begins in earnest. I don't know who Ernest is, but it sounds uncomfortable for him._

 _And just to reiterate, this story is like the sixties. It doesn_ _'t have any Cable. Heh. You'll have to wait for my second movie for that. Or you could go play my video game or read my comics. I can confirm that The Author is not actually Rob Liefield and does not earn any sort of commission on Deadpool games and comics sold._


	2. We're Not Going To Guam

Legacy

 _2\. We_ _'re Not Going to Guam  
(in which I don_ _'t get to eat any fortune cookies)_

* * *

 **Location: The Middle of the Atlantic Ocean  
32,000ft above sea level  
Somewhere between 02:00 HRS EST, and 07:00 HRS GMT  
Several months earlier**

Clinging precariously to the retracted wheel of Trans-Atlantic Flight TM-56, Wade Wilson, alias Deadpool, shivered with cold. It was about the only thing one _could_ do whilst clinging to the retracted wheel of a Trans-Atlantic flight, other than reciting humourous limericks to oneself. And Deadpool wasn't all that good at limericks. Not enough Irish in him.

As he clung, and failed at reciting limericks to himself, he considered the circumstances which had led to him stowing away on a plane bound for England. It had all started three days earlier, when—

 **Wait. Exposition is** _ **so**_ **1959\. This is the eighties. Let** **'s mix it up a bit. Do it in a flashback.**

 _Whoa, hold your horses and park your keister, meister. We_ _'re_ already _in a flashback. Can we_ do _a flashback-within-a-flashback? Won_ _'t that… y'know… BREAK THE VERY FABRIC OF REALITY or something? I don't want Doc Strange pissed at me again._

 **We** **'re Deadpool. We can do whatever we want. Oh, by the way, Marvel's got us a new writer, so we're no longer doing this whole duelling-banjos thing. From hereon, I'll be handling the audience. You can do all that whiny cry-baby story stuff you're so good at.**

 _But_ _—!_

 **No butts except mine. Now, cue the music. Something jazz, with a hint of blues and just a twist of soul, perhaps with a subtle undertone of funk. Raise the curtain. Aaaand** **… flashback.**

o - o - o - o - o

 **Location: Bao** **'s Costume Shop  
Manhattan** **'s Chinatown, New York  
Three days earlier**

Deadpool watched the woman. She watched back. Didn't so much as bat an eyelid at the bandages covering his face, or the gloves he wore over his hands despite the unseasonal warmth. Her brown, slanted eyes spoke of wisdom. Of experience. Of a quick buck at the expense of the stupid American sitting in front of her. Little did she know, Deadpool was not the typical stupid American. He was _Canadian_ , which was a whole other type of stupid.

"Pick a card," she said, holding out the deck to him. Her long silk sleeves trailed across the table, very nearly touching the candle burning to one side. Deadpool noticed the fire hazard, but said nothing. "Any card."

He picked one and lay it face-up on the table. It displayed a disturbing picture; ten metal swords piercing the body of a dead man.

"Ahh, condolences on recent loss," the woman said.

"What do you mean?" he asked with a glare. Obviously the card meant someone was dead. Nobody could survive being shish-kebabed by ten swords. Unless they had an awesome healing factor, of course.

"Take another card."

He took one. A man man rode a white horse and carried a stick, whilst people walked beside him carrying other sticks. He put it down on the table, and the woman nodded.

"Your lady friend. Betrayed. Terrible fate."

"This doesn't seem very Chinesey," he complained. "I thought you'd be, y'know, rubbing lucky pieces of bamboo together or something."

"Westerners get cards. Card or runes. Your choice."

He gave it a moment of consideration. Runes _did_ sound much cooler, but the cards had such nifty pictures. He was already getting ideas about how to inventively kill people from them.

"Keep going with the cards," he said. "But tell me what I _want_ to know, not what I _already_ know." He took out a newspaper, showed her the part of the page he'd circled in red pen. "Your ad says _all_ my questions answered. If I don't get them all answered, I might have to start chopping off body parts."

The woman merely laughed in a very insane way, and held the deck out to him again. "Okay Mr Big-Shot Butcher Man. You pick next card for future."

 **Ugh. Fortune-telling. I have sunk low indeed. These aren** **'t even the good sort of fortunes, either, like the kind you get in cookies.**

But he took a card nonetheless. He had no other choice. Almost three months of chasing down leads, and he was still no closer to finding Caldwell. His vengeance was at serious risk of being served luke-warm, instead of piping hot.

The next card displayed _XI - Justice_. A seated man holding up a sword.

"Oh come on," he said. "That's just too obvious! I think your cards are cheating."

"Cards do not cheat," she said. "Justice is state you are trying to achieve. But you have encountered failure, yes?"

"Well _duh_. Would I have answered your ad if I'd been successful? No. I'd be in Honolulu, sipping mojitos on the beach. So far all you've done is a lot of accurate guesswork." He leant across the table, gave her a good, proper glaring. "Tell me how I serve my slice of justice pie."

"Pick three cards," she said.

Grumbling, he picked one, then another, and then the last. He turned them over, one at a time, and lay them on the table. The first had _The World_ written on it, and showed a picture of a semi-naked woman surrounded by a circle.

 **Gee, I haven** **'t seen this much nudity and violence since last week's episode of** _ **Days of Our Lives.**_

The next card was a little tamer. It depicted a girly-looking man with a sword, posing in a very effeminate way. The last card was of a guy with a stick fighting off six other sticks. Freud would probably have a lot to say about that. All in all, it looked like a bunch of crap, in his professional opinion.

"So, what's the verdict?" he asked, as the woman peered at the cards. "Is there a cache of heavy ammunition coming my way anytime soon?"

"You will need someone to help you in your quest."

"A quest? You mean like travelling to the Forests of HokeyPokey and slaying the goblin bandit leader for a bunch of loot and XP? Cos I already did one of those, and the loot turned out to be rubbish."

A sharp slap from her hand caught him on the back of his head.

"Do not mock the arts! This very important business."

"It better be important. It's costing me thirty bucks."

Not that he had any money to pay her with. If she were _really_ a fortune teller, she would have been able to tell her own fortune and known that he was flat broke before he'd even walked in. Which merely proved she was a fraud.

"This card," she said, poking it repeatedly with one long-nailed finger, "shows Page of Swords."

"Yeah, I know. It says it along the bottom."

"It has many meanings. One I sense now means secrets and hidden thoughts, energy and deception. Someone who can help you find what you are looking for. Maybe you know this person, but they are not near you at moment."

"How do you know?"

"This card," she said, pointing at the semi-naked lady in desperate need of supportive underwear. "Means travel. Not just little travel, like across city. More like across continent. Some important voyage you must take."

"So you're basically saying I have to go on a long journey to meet a deceptive, secretive person?"

"If you want be literal, yes."

"Sounds like the start of _The Lord of the Rings._ I'm lazy. Can't you do it for me?"

She raised her hand, and he leant back to avoid another slap.

"One more thing. This card," she said, pointing to the last. "Seven of Wands. Again, many meanings. Had you picked it for you, would suggest it mean valour and success in battle. But you picked for future and it followed Page card."

"Is that bad?"

"Maybe. Maybe not. Card have hidden meaning. A dark child." She picked it up and held it in her hands. Closing her eyes, she was silent for several minutes, and when she opened them she gave a shiver and shook her head. "No. Can't see. Some things not meant to be seen so closely. Some things too dangerous to be seen. I get impression, though. A woman… and yet not. Not exactly."

"Some sort of pre-op transvestite?"

"You are mocking again!" she warned.

"But you make it so easy!"

"Your twenty minutes are up. Owe thirty dollars."

"Yeah, about that," he said, scratching his head through his itchy bandages. "I was sorta hoping we could do this on a quid quo pro basis. The quid being that you give me all the answers to my questions, and the quo pro being that I don't chop your head off."

He slid one of the blades from his arms, and her eyes widened just a fraction. Not the response he was looking for.

"Ha! You not kill me."

"How'd'ya know?"

"I have three-thirty appointment. Already foreseen results. Could not have done that if I die now. Also, I seen where you need to go. Won't tell you if you kill me."

"Damn you, you shifty fortune-teller," he scowled, retracting the blade. "Fine. Tell me where I need to go and I won't kill you."

"You need go to England. You find help there."

"Fine. Then maybe I'll go there. Pleasure doing non-business with you."

" _AAAAAUGH!_

A howl of alarm from the main shop sent the Chinese lady running, and Deadpool hurried after her. Sounded like a cry of genuine anguish. Perhaps there was somebody he could stab in payment for the dodgy fortune-telling.

When he pushed aside the silk curtain and stepped onto the shop floor, however, he found Mr Bao, owner of the costume shop from where Mrs Bao ran her psychic business, surrounded by several cardboard boxes with Chinese writing on them. He was holding up something red and black, and staring at the boxes as if they all contained poisonous spiders.

"What is all yelling for?" Mrs Bao demanded. "Is very distracting for business."

Mr Bao turned and held up the red and black material. "My shipment of Spider Man costumes from the factory in China! The idiots got order wrong, sent a hundred and fifty costumes only half-finished! The annual Superhero convention is in less than a week, and now I have no Spider Man costumes to sell! I am ruined!"

Deadpool picked up one of the costumes and held it out, turning it over to examine the back. It was fine work, for a Chinese sweat-shop.

 **Red is totally my colour. And I can** **'t go around wearing bandages all the time… the people at Taco Bell won't even serve me anymore, they think I'm a leper. A half-completed Spider Man costume will be much less conspicuous.**

"Hey, Bao," he said. "I'll buy your costumes. And by 'buy them' I mean I'll give you some money for them as often a I come across it as long as you agree to stash them here for me. It can be our special business arrangement. And by 'special' I mean I won't cut off your head."

"Always with the head-cutting!" said Mrs Bao. Her hands rose melodramatically into the air. "I think you have problem." She turned to her husband. "Sell the stupid American half-finished Spider Man costumes. We can get money back from supplier and buy Captain America costumes instead. He more popular anyway."

"Very well," Mr Bao sighed. He shoved one of the boxes into Wade's arms. "Here, Mr Stupid American Sir. First box of inferior products is yours. Give them away to orphans, use them to make fire, whatever. Come back when ready to take more boxes. And bring money, this is costume shop, not charity!"

Pleased with his newfound negotiation skills, Deadpool accepted the box and prepared to depart. Just as he was leaving, however, Mrs Bao called him back.

"Hey, you Mr Stabby-Man. You take this, too."

She held something out to him, which turned out to be one of the tarot cards he'd picked.

"What's that for?"

"Is clue. Find this place, you find answers."

He took _The World_ card, and ran his eyes over it again. "What, you couldn't be a _little_ more specific? In case you hadn't noticed, we live on a pretty big planet. Well, a pretty small planet compared to Jupiter or Saturn, but it's a big planet compared to little old me."

"No, wasted enough time on you. You still owe thirty dollar and cost of Spider Man costumes. You come back and pay after finished on quest, or I send you very bad karma. Very bad."

He shrugged, tossed the card into the box, and departed.

He drew a few glances as he walked down Chinatown's main streets, but he didn't have far to go. Home these days was whichever newly condemned building had yet to be demolished, and New York had plenty of them. Although he'd been forced to move home four times over the past three months, he'd been in his current pad for two weeks, with no sign of the demolition company. Things had been a bit hairy when a group of heroin addicts had tried to move in on his turf, but he'd scared them off and they'd stayed away since. Grimes said you had to be tough with the addicts; they'd steal the shoes off a drifter, if you weren't careful. And since Grimes knew how to survive on the rough streets of New York, Wade paid attention to what the old man said.

He reached his home and made his way up the stairs, to his bedroom, which had once been the office of _Mr Reginald Hoover, CEO._ CEO of what, Wade did not know, because the exterior sign had long been removed from the building, but the office was comfortable enough now that Grimes had shown him how to make a bed out of old newspapers. The trick was to screw up the pages, rather than lie them flat. Sure, it wasn't the Ritz, but it wasn't the worst place he'd slept in. It beat the military's medical torture chamber on Three Mile Island hands-down.

As soon as he reached his bed he shed his bandages like a snake shedding its skin and pulled on one of the costumes. It fit like a glove, and he turned to one of the windows, to examine his faint reflection in the glass. Clearly the people in China had no idea what Spider Man looked like, because this costume, even half-finished, wasn't a very good approximation of the masked hero.

 **In fact** , he thought, **Spider Man copied off** _ **my**_ **costume. Yeah, definitely. That dirty copy-cat. I oughta track him down and stab him for infringing my copyright.**

After a quick rifle through the box he found himself with fifty complete costumes, each identical. Each far superior to any Spider Man costume.

 **And how fortuitous they** **'re all my size. I wonder if they're flame-retardant, too…**

His reflection caught his eye. _Deadpool_. That's who he was, now. He had a secret identity and a costume to go with it. Did that mean he was a superhero? He didn't _feel_ much like a superhero. Mostly he felt like a super-loser. A military experiment gone wrong. A failure in every sense of the word. Couldn't even carry out the vengeance he'd promised the woman he'd cared for.

To take his mind off his dark thoughts, he picked up yesterday's pizza box and tucked in to the leftovers. Cold pizza. The lunch of champions.

Grimes didn't approve, of course. The first week Deadpool had been homeless, he'd broken into Taco Bell after opening hours and stolen a whole tray of food. Payment to Grimes and his fellow hobos for all they'd done. But Grimes and Duckie and all the other homeless men wouldn't touch the pilfered goods. _We_ _'re drifters, not thieves,_ Grimes had said. _We don_ _'t steal. We're not criminals. Just homeless and mentally unbalanced._

When Deadpool had pointed out that Duckie had nicked a shirt from a murder victim found in an alley before the cops showed up, Grimes had an answer for that, too.

 _Stealing from the dead ain_ _'t stealing. It's re-distribution of goods. A body don't need a shirt. We're not deprivin' anyone of their belongings or their livelihoods. Where would we be, without our self-respect?_

So the drifters had gone back to eating from dumpsters, and Deadpool had eaten the tray of stolen tacos himself.

Now, he finished the last of the day-old pizza then lay back on his bed of newspaper to digest. Three months of chasing whispers and rumours, of watching news reports and reading the papers and listening for any sign of the military or Caldwell.

Connie's death had been a footnote on page six of the local paper. Her obituary was touchingly written. Her funeral had been held the week after her body had been found. Deadpool had desperately wanted to go, but Grimes told him it would be stupid and suicidal to show his face (or not show his face, thanks to the new supply of bandages he'd stolen from the hospital). So, he'd stayed away. Grimes had gone, and reported back that the service was _definitely_ being surveilled by astronauts posing as gardeners.

Life on the run was no fun. It was tiring, and lonely, and frustrating. Each night brought dreams, memories of his old life intermingled with memories of his new life, as well as fabrications of the life he'd wanted to live. Connie was in almost all of them. Sometimes faces appeared to haunt him, faces of men he _knew_ he knew but couldn't remember. He couldn't remember because he was broken inside.

The sun sank below the cityscape, plunging Deadpool's bedroom-cum-office into darkness. He closed his eyes and thought back to what the fortune teller had told him. Her voice echoed around his head as he drifted off to sleep.

… _secrets and hidden thoughts. Energy and deception… A dark child… Do not mock the arts!.. Some important voyage you must take… important voyage… England… You find help there…_

 _._

 _._

 _BANG!_

 _The shot rang out. But even before the gun sounded, he was moving. A lift of the arm. Eyes scanning the barrel. Brain working out the trajectory. Gun model, Walther P5, German hand-gun. Velocity of 9x19mm Parabellum round, maximum of 426 metres per second. Angle required for 360-reflection, 182.7 degrees. Margin of error, 0.12mm._

 _CHINK!_

 _The bullet hit the sword in his hand. A brief flick of his wrist sent it back to its owner, and the man hit the floor, his body joining the others that littered the flagstone courtyard._

" _Wade?"_

 _The scene shifted. Tinkling music fed into his ears, and when he inhaled he could smell flowers_ _… lilies, pink and purple and yellow adorned the room in vases. When he looked down, he realised he was naked, save for the white towel wrapped around his waist. His skin was smooth, flawless, the tone of his muscle visible beneath it._

 _He looked up for the source of the voice, saw her watching him from behind a painted screen, her green eyes bright, filled with a playful gleam._

" _I thought you'd be on your way back to England by now," he said._

" _My flight's being prepared for takeoff. But before I go, I wanted to thank you for saving my life." She stepped out from behind the screen, clad only in a pale blue silk gown which hugged the sparse curves of her figure. Her skin, pale as porcelain, seemed to glow from within, and when she reached him she stood on her tiptoes and planted a kiss on his lips._

 _She tasted like strawberries, and as she wrapped her arms around his neck he lifted her up, so he didn_ _'t have to crane his neck down to reach her lips. He lifted one hand, let his fingers entwine around the dark curls of hair which tumbled down and tickled his bare skin._

 _When she transferred her mouth to his ear, biting down softly on his lobe, he felt a shiver run down his entire body, his fingers curling reflexively in pleasure._

" _Do you thank everybody who saves your life this way?" he asked._

" _No," she whispered. Her breath, warm against his ear, brought forth another shiver. "But you're different. Most people, even most mutants, when they find out what I am, what I can do, how easily I can read their thoughts… they pull away. Their minds turn suspicious. Mistrustful. But you… you held nothing back. Invited me in. You feel no disgust, at the thought of me being in your mind." A smile played across her lips, and she gestured at something behind him. He turned to find a jacuzzi bath filled with a yellowish fizzy liquid. "I thought your champagne idea sounded… intriguing. If you don't mind indulging me, of course."_

" _I_ totally _don_ _'t mind indulging you," he assured her._

 _He kissed her again as he carried her towards the bath. Savoured the strawberry flavour of her lips. Felt his scalp tingle as she ran her fingernails down his spine. Shed the towel around his waist as he stepped over the rim of the tub. Felt the cool bubbles of the champagne cling to his skin, and_ _—_

 _Snap, Snap, Snap_

 _Everything blurred. The illusion shattered, and Wade looked up into a face that never failed to bring chills to his skin. The face of a grey-eyed, bearded man. The face of a killer._

.

.

He sat up in his bed of newspaper, gasping for air. Feeling as if he was suffocating, he scrabbled at his face with his fingers, then realised he'd fallen asleep with his new mask on, and relaxed a little.

Traces of the dream lingered in his mind. The face of the man who had been Captain was familiar enough by now, but the woman he had seen only once or twice before, and never in a dream-setting so intimate and arousing.

Had she been his lover, or colleague? And why did she only feature infrequently in his dreams? Who _was_ she? Apart from her cultured, English accent, he had no clue about her identity.

 **Wait a minute. Didn** **'t the Chinese lady say somebody in England could help me? Maybe it's the woman from my dreams. But it doesn't help if I can't remember who she is!**

He got out of his newspaper bed and paced the room in darkness. From previous pacings, he knew he had exactly nine steps before he'd need to about-turn. Nine steps before he'd smash himself right into the wall and save the demolition team half a job.

 **Think, brain, think! Think like you** **'ve never thunked before. If we need to go to England and find this woman and convince her to help us, we need to know who she** _ **is**_ **. You** **'ve gotta know more than this. How come you can remember I'm Canadian, but you can't remember anything about the hot chick from my dreams?**

He dove under his bed and rooted around until he found a pen, then grabbed the empty pizza box and turned it over to make notes on the back. He wrote:

 _Hot chick with green eyes_

 _English_

 _Can read minds and make you see champagne baths_

 _Has a plane?_

 _Tastes like strawberries_

 _Saved her life once_

It wasn't enough to go on. Not _nearly_ enough. England wasn't a very big country, but it had a lot of people in it. With every moment that passed, Caldwell's trail was getting colder. Deadpool couldn't afford to spend the next six months wandering around England looking for a woman he might never find.

The fortune teller's description didn't help, either. Her dire warning of _a woman, and yet not_ , meant nothing. The hot chick from his dreams was very clearly a woman. He _definitely_ would have noticed any plumbing discrepancies. With no better idea, he climbed back into bed, closed his eyes, and tried to will himself back to sleep. If the answers were in his dreams, then he'd just have to dream as much as possible and hope he could find a few nuggets of truth amongst the madness.

o - o - o - o - o

The answer came to him two days later, a product of pure serendipity. After two days of trying to force himself to sleep, and then not remembering any dreams when he woke, he decided a change of scenery was in order.

It was late afternoon, and he took to wandering without aim. Normally he avoided the main roads, because everybody thought he was a leper, but now that he'd exchanged his bandages for a half-finished Spider Man costume, he had no such compunctions. He still drew shocked stares and sly glances, but nobody recoiled in fear. Nobody crossed the street when they saw him coming.

 **If only they knew what was underneath the mask.**

A garish yellow and black poster caught his eye, and he stopped to read the affront to advertising. The slogan across the top said ANNUAL TALENT SHOW. And then, underneath in smaller letters, _Friday night, 7pm. Entry fee $5 for adults, $3.50 for concessions._ Pictures had been haphazardly splashed across the poster, as if someone had merely thrown a bunch of photos at it and gone with the ones which stuck; A kid playing a trombone, comical because the instrument was _far_ too big for him. A troupe of jack russell terriers forced to dress in little Village People outfits. Two girls in pink ballerina costumes, both so chubby they looked like little piggies on their way to market. A male contortionist… the less said about his skin-tight green spandex outfit, the better.

 **More like Annual Talent** _ **less**_ **Show. Am I right?**

But still, something about the sign seemed very familiar. Much as he wanted be on his way and cleanse the image of the contortionist from his mind via a thorough application of alcohol, he couldn't bring himself to move on. There was something important here. Something which nudged him sharply in the subconscious.

He scoured the pictures but found nothing of note. No secret messages addressed to his brain. No familiar faces amongst the riffraff. Moving on, he checked the fine print at the bottom of the poster. _This year_ _'s ANNUAL TALENT SHOW is organised by Mike Constanza and Greta Tarbuck. The Judging Panel will be formed from community leaders. All are welcome to take part!_

A woman stepped out of a nearby door, and beamed when she saw him looking at the poster. She was over in a flash, offering a toothy smile and a hand that had a grip like a workman's vice.

"Hey there," she said, in a nasal New York accent. "I'm Greta Tarbuck, organiser of this year's Annual Talent Show. Are you interested in taking part in the show this year? We've never had a Spider Man impersonator before."

"Oh, I'm not a Spider Man impersonator," he said. "In fact, _he_ stole his costume idea from _me_."

"Ahh. I see. Well then, I hope you'll at least come along and watch this year's new talent!"

 **Watch fat kids dance around, dogs forced into humiliating costumes, and observe some green-clad dude** **'s bulging package? Not likely.**

"Will there be refreshments?" he asked.

"Why yes, there certainly will."

"Then I'll certainly be there."

"That's great to hear! I really hope you enjoy this year's talent show. We have some amazing acts."

She smiled again and started to walk away.

"Wait a minute," he called after her. "Say that again."

"We have some amazing—"

"No, not that. The bit about the talent show."

"Well, I said I really hope you enjoy this year's talent show."

"Again."

"Err, why?"

"Humour me." The 'something' which had been tickling at the back of his mind was now jumping up and down and waving a big HERE BE CLUES flag.

"I really hope you enjoy this year's talent show."

"Now say it real slow."

"I… really… hope… you… enjoy… this… year's… tal—"

 _The image flashed through his mind. The woman from his dreams, stepping forward, accepting a handshake from the one called Stryker. Her dark brown hair was tied back, left to tumble like a waterfall of curls, as it had in his dream. Her green eyes seemed even brighter, contrasting starkly with her black clothes._

" _Talon," she said. "MI6."_

Deadpool opened his eyes, found the talent show lady giving him a suspicious look. He stepped forward, picked her up and spun her around.

"Woohoo, that's it!" he said, as she squeaked in protest. When he realised he was drawing stares from passersby, he put her down and shook her hand. "Sorry, Greta, but it looks like I'm not going to make that talent show on Friday after all." He set off at a jog, and glanced back at her surprised face. "I have a plane to catch."

* * *

 _Deadpool_ _'s Note: You may have noticed that this is the first "real" chapter. You may therefore wish to type something in the rectangular box directly below this paragraph. Something about how awesome I am and how much you're enjoying me being in a new story (even if it_ _ **is**_ _set in 1984). And then you may wish to click the button which says Post Review so that I get to hear about how awesome I am. Don_ _'t forget to start your obsequious praise with "OK TO PRINT"_

 _Just for the record, the Author still hasn_ _'t finished writing my story, but each time a new chapter is completed, a previous one will be released. It's a sort of compromise. Yay._


	3. London Calling

Legacy

 _3\. London Calling_

 _(in which I make some new friends in England)_

* * *

 **Location: Heathrow Airport Runway (Arrivals)  
London, England  
08:30 HRS GMT**

Life was great when you had a passport, and a face that could pass a security checkpoint without inciting a flash-mob, and when you actually existed on government systems as something other than a big red warning sign.

For Deadpool, who had none of these things, life was slightly less than great. In fact, it was hypothermia and oxygen deprivation. Because he had no legal way of leaving America by plane, he'd been forced to cling to the underside of the passenger taxi as it carried the normal people across the runway. Then he'd been forced to wait until the very last moment, let go, roll out from under the taxi and make a dash for the wheel. Luckily it was almost nine o'clock in the evening, and it had been dark enough to allow him to move undetected.

He hadn't anticipated how cold it would get, at 32,000ft. By the time the plane touched down, his heart-rate was so low that even a doctor would have had a hard time finding his pulse. From his hiding place inside the wheel well he was dimly aware of noises which indicated things. The luggage truck arriving. Luggage handlers emptying the hold. **(Stupid brain, should have hidden us in the luggage hold).** Then the passenger taxi, and the chatter as the norms departed the plane. After that a small tug-vehicle arrived, and pulled the plane away for refuelling. When it was taken back to the loading area, ready to receive the next batch of passengers for its round-trip to the States, Deadpool knew he had to act. He wouldn't survive another flight like that.

At last, almost three hours after landing, he managed to make his muscles work. He crawled to the edge of the wheel well, and peered down just as the empty luggage carrier passed below. Fortunately, falling took very little effort. He let gravity escort him down, and landed with a heavy thump in the back cart of the vehicle. The driver, several carts ahead, was wearing some sort of ear mufflers, so did not hear his vehicle gain a passenger.

The vehicle was parked up, and the driver departed without looking in the back. Slowly, Deadpool peered over the edge of the cart. He saw a conveyor belt not far away, on which luggage would soon be sent down, and after a quick glance around to ensure there was nobody to see him, he hopped over the side and stiffly made his way to the conveyor. He crawled onto it and hit the 'on' switch, feeling blessed relief as he was carried inside the warmth of the airport.

 **Note to self: Never, ever, ever do that again.**

The conveyor brought him at last to a large room in which luggage was hefted around by men who seemed not to care for how fragile some cases looked. A radio was blaring in the background, Journey's _Don_ _'t Stop Believing_ barely audible over the whining and grinding of the conveyor belt gears. That didn't stop several of the workers from singing along to it… and singing badly. Deadpool tried to cover his ears, but found he needed his hands for escaping the complex system of conveyors which seemed determined to take him back outside.

At the first opportune moment he slid over the side of the belt and hung for a moment to judge his drop. When he let go he plummeted to the floor, but timed his landing well and managed to avoid breaking any bones. Remaining unseen wasn't all that difficult; the workers were engrossed in tossing luggage around and singing badly, and this was possibly the first time that anybody had infiltrated an airport via the arrivals runway. Anybody with nefarious ideas would want to be getting access _to_ the planes, not sneaking _away_ from them.

For almost an hour he waited, hidden beneath a conveyor belt, watching feet pass him by, enjoying the feeling of his body warming up after a horrible eight-hour flight from New York.

 **The entertainment was terrible, too. I should write a letter of complaint to the airline. No consideration for us lower-middle-class stowaways.**

At ten o'clock there was a tea break. How typically English. The workers all departed, some of them still singing, and Deadpool was left to his own devices. The first thing he did was switch tags on some of the nearby luggage cases, imagining with malicious glee the cries of consternation when Mrs Priscilla Mayweather got to Tahiti and discovered she'd got little Jimmy Neville's luggage instead.

After that he fiddled with the nobs on the radio until all it produced was static, stole a bag of sandwiches one of the workers had left on top of a cupboard, and snuck out the door before the baggage guys could finish with their break. It was time now to put his cunning plan into action.

o - o - o - o - o

MI6 probably had a headquarters, but Deadpool had no idea where it was. He also had a sneaking suspicion that if he entered the headquarters of MI6 and asked to speak to a mutant secret agent called Talon, he would be met with blank stares and the finest impression of plausible deniability since that whole Roswell "weather balloon" incident.

No, he couldn't go to Talon. Even if he _knew_ where the MI6 headquarters was (he'd examined a map in a tourist kiosk, but, unsurprisingly, MI6 wasn't labelled on it), and even if the people in charge there _didn_ _'t_ deny having a secret agent called Talon on their roster, the chances were very slim that he'd be allowed to talk to her. His usual negotiation tactic of threatening to cut someone's head off would probably get him arrested, and very possibly deported. His frozen, eight hour hell-journey from New York would have been for nothing.

The answer was simple. Instead of him going to Talon, he had to make Talon come to him. And his plan for making this happen was fool-proof.

He strolled down the streets of London, enjoying the sights of small roads congested by too much traffic, watching suicidal cyclists trying to get themselves killed by weaving in front of cars and running red lights, chuckling to himself at all the silly Limey accents and how quaint and cliché everything was. People here _actually_ said "toodle-pip." And they _meant it_.

Deadpool drew even more stares here than he had done in New York, possibly because these people weren't used to seeing costumed superheros in their city. Men and women alike stared at him as he passed. One old lady was so busy oggling him in open-mouthed shock that she didn't watch where she was going, and walked right into a street light. A group of teenagers clad in grey school uniforms and black blazers pointed and laughed at his bright redness, and he restrained the urge to cut off their heads.

He found the Bank of England Camden Branch on Kentish Town Road. It was a busy bank, with customers depositing their cheques and paying their debts and taking out their loans during their lunch breaks. People were so focused on their own financial affairs that when Deadpool stepped into the branch, drowning in the din of English voices, nobody paid him any attention, which was _almost_ a refreshing change. Only, he _wanted_ people to pay attention to him, now. Attention was vital to his plan.

From one of the pockets of his nifty $9.99 utility belt, he took out the pistol he'd "appropriated" from some nerdy arms dealer in NY, pointed it up into the air, and fired once.

The _bang_ of gunfire drew the attention he so desired, and requests for loan application forms turned into screams of panic. One or two people ran for the door, and almost ran into Deadpool. Finding their exit blocked, they cowered away from him, gazes instantly lowering, as if afraid to draw his ire through direct eye contact.

Deadpool pulled the door closed behind him and took a step forward.

"Everybody get down on the ground," he said.

They obeyed instantly, even the people in the queues for the tellers lowering themselves to the ground in the order in which they were standing. It was all very orderly and efficient. Nothing like an American bank hold-up, in which you'd invariably get half a dozen women sobbing so much that they didn't hear your instructions, a pious individual praying loudly to God over and over again, and one or two fools with guns of their own and a superhero complex.

With everybody on the ground, and only one or two people sniffling quietly, Deadpool stepped forward and approached the counters where the uniform-wearing tellers were seated.

"All right, you lot," he said. "Put your hands in the air."

They obeyed. One man, however, was braver or stupider than his fellows. Even as he lifted his hands, he leant forward to speak through the microphone on his side of the glass. The speaker on the public side crackled.

"Y—you should know that I've pressed the panic button. In two minutes, the police will have this place surrounded."

"Good."

"Y—you'll never get away with—" The man stopped mid-sentence. "I b—beg your pardon?"

"I said 'good,'" Deadpool repeated. He glanced at the man's name-tag on his uniform. It read, _Hello my name is DAVID_. "If you've called the cops, Dave, it saves me a job. I'd actually been a bit worried that they wouldn't take me seriously and I'd have to shoot one of you."

"You w—want the police to come?"

"Of course. How else am I to give them my list of demands? Don't you _know_ how a hostage negotiation works, Dave?"

"Look," said another man. This one was wearing a suit, and he was crouching behind a desk which bore a little _Manager_ plaque. "Why don't you just take the money and go? The police aren't here yet."

Deadpool scratched his head through his mask with the nozzle of his pistol. "Money? What money? What are you talking about, Manager?"

"This is a bank. Presumably you've come here to steal the money."

He let out a little laugh and walked over to the manager. The man winced, but Deadpool merely perched on the edge of the desk and picked up the plaque, tossing it into the air and catching it with his free hand.

"No offence, Manager, but if I wanted your money, wouldn't it make more sense for me to come after hours, when there's nobody around? I reckon I could be past the alarm in about a minute and a half. And if I came on a Saturday, which is party-night no matter which continent you're on, I'd have a good eight to ten minutes to get away, with your police busy escorting idiots to the drunk-tank." He shook his head. "Daylight robbery. Not classy, Manager. Not classy at all. Besides, what would I do with a bunch of British money? It's only good on your island. And maybe some of your overseas territories. But nowhere I particularly want to go. Except perhaps Australia. Kangaroos are so cool. Do they use British money, in Australia?"

"If you're not after the money, then why in God's name are you holding the bank up?" the Manager demanded.

"Oh, I just needed to get somebody's attention. And I thought holding up a bank would make me more sympathetic to my audience than holding up a school. That's sort of a faux pas."

A look of disbelief passed across the Manager's nondescript middle-aged face. "You're insane!"

"A little bit, yeah. But in a normal, healthy, unhinged from reality way. Not in a 'eat the livers of my hostages' kinna way."

The Manager's next words were cut off by the blaring of sirens growing louder and louder. For three or four minutes the sirens sounded, but no cars appeared out front.

"What's taking them so long?" he asked, pointing the gun at Dave. "You said they'd be here in two minutes."

"Th—there's roadworks at the corner of Camden High Street and Parkway. Temporary traffic lights. And Kentish Town Road is one-way traffic only."

"Stupid roadworks. They disrupt honest commuters wherever you go! Oh well, this delay gives me chance to prepare. Listen up, ladies and gentlemen, I need volunteers to stand in front of the windows and provide a sort of human screen to stop the police just shooting me. Not that it would kill me, but it would certainly hurt like hell, and make me angry. You don't want to see me angry. So. Volunteers?"

There was a resounding silence, so Deadpool turned the gun on the Manager. The man flinched, and a bead of sweat trickled down his forehead.

"Looks like the decision's yours, Mr Manager. Tell me, who would you rather potentially sacrifice? Your customers, or your employees?"

The Manager looked around, at the customers who gave him money, and the employees who took money away. Very possibly the evening news bulletins rolled through his mind. _Bank Employees Shot in Line of Duty,_ versus _, Innocent Bank Customers Shot Whilst Making Deposits._ Clearly it was a no-brainer.

"My employees."

"Tom, you bastard!" one of the tellers growled.

"Hey, language," Deadpool warned. "There may be minors in the audience. But Tom's made his choice. All you employees, over by the window. And keep your hands on the back of your heads. No, in fact, be Little Teapots. I want to see all your handles and spouts. Not you, Dave. You stay where you are. I feel like we've established a rapport. And you, Tom, you stay by your desk. I may still need somebody to shoot."

Tom paled. The bank employees lined up, and they made a very convincing row of teapots. Two minutes later the sirens started getting louder again, and several police cars pulled up. Thirty seconds after that, the telephone on Tom's desk started to ring.

"Aren't you going to get that?" Deadpool asked.

"It's probably for you," said Tom.

"Oh, but it's your phone. I insist."

Tom reached over the side of his desk and picked up the receiver. "Hello?" He listened for a moment, then held the phone out to Deadpool. "It's for you."

"How do they know who I am?"

"The man on the other end said, 'let me speak to the bloke with the gun.'"

"How do they know I have a gun?"

Tom held the receiver to his ear again. "He wants to know how you know he has a gun. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. I see." He covered the mouthpiece and whispered to Deadpool, "He says he can see you. And by the way, he likes your Spider Man costume."

"How can he see me? I have a human wall."

"He wants to know how you can see him," Tom said down the phone. "Oh." He pointed to a corner of the room. "They're tapped into the bank CCTV camera."

"That camera?" asked Deadpool, pointing his gun at the offending piece of technology. Tom nodded, and Deadpool pulled the trigger of his pistol. The camera exploded into little bits. "Now, gimme the phone." Tom handed it over, and Deadpool held it to his ear. "Hello?"

"This is Inspector Lance White, Violent Crime division, Scotland Yard. To whom am I talking?"

"This is Deadpool," he replied. "And let me state for the record, I object to the term 'violent crime.' I've been very civil, so far. It's Civil Crime. In fact, it isn't really crime at all, 'cos nobody's been shot, and if you've watched the video from the camera you'll know I haven't taken any money."

"You're holding a building full of people against their will," said Inspector White. "That's a crime."

"I'm not holding them against their will. They're all free to go whenever they choose. I only have ten or eleven bullets left, so a lot of them might even make it out alive." He held up the phone into the air. "Does anybody want to leave?"

There was a resounding chorus of 'no.'

"See? They want to be here."

"I'm not going to argue semantics with you," said White. "Just tell me what you're after."

"I'll give you my terms. But I'll only give them to Talon."

"Who the hell's 'Talon'?"

"She's an MI6 agent. I'll deal with her, and only her. You have… oh, let's just pick an arbitrary number like twenty-three. You have twenty-three minutes to get me Talon, and then I'll start shooting people. In the meantime, enjoy this entertainment."

He hung up the phone and turned to the bank employees.

"Tip over and pour, teapots!" He clapped as they obeyed. "Very good. If they made Synchronised Teapot Pouring an Olympic sport, Team GB might actually come away with a gold medal."

"E—excuse me, Mr Deadpool," said Dave. "W—would you mind if I ate a chocolate bar? I'm diabetic, and I haven't had lunch yet."

"Lunch! Now there's an excellent idea! Tom, can your phone do dial-back?"

"Um… yes?"

"Good. Get me Inspector White. Tell him to send lunch for however many people I've got here. There's no point in us going hungry whilst waiting for my demands to be met, eh?"

o - o - o - o - o

The silver Aston Martin descended into the underground car park beneath the MI6 headquarters, and pulled to a halt in one of the bays marked _Reserved_. A grey-suited man stood waiting; tall, handsome, just a sprinkling of white in his late-forties black hair. As the Aston stopped, he stepped forward and opened the door, offering his hand to the woman who stepped out.

"My first day off in six weeks, Jimmy," Talon complained, "and you send someone to pick me up barely halfway through the day."

"We have a situation."

"And I have a holiday. You _do_ remember what holidays are, don't you? Those days where I don't have to come to work and handle situations? Besides, I'm off active duty."

Sliding his access card through the building's door reader, he ignored her complaints and strode forward to the stairwell. Talon had to jog to keep up.

"Does the name 'Deadpool' mean anything to you?" he asked.

"Not a bloody thing. Why?"

"Just over fifteen minutes ago, someone calling himself 'Deadpool' and wearing a cheap Spider Man costume walked into the Bank of England in Camden Town and pulled a gun on the staff and customers. Doesn't seem at all interested in robbing the place. Hasn't shot anybody yet, but has given us a deadline for meeting his demands."

They finished climbing the stairs and stepped out into a corridor. Men and women passed them but ignored them, busy with work of their own. Talon purposely slowed down, forcing her handler to match her shorter stride. She would not, _not!_ be forced to hurry on her day off.

"So? Have police snipers shoot him."

"He has a wall of people standing in front of the windows, and since he took out the camera, the police have no way of knowing what's happening inside. The Chief's personally requested your assistance on this one."

"Oh yes, send a driver to pick me up on my day off and bring me here without any explanation at all. _Very_ personal. I'll be sure to thank him the next time I see him. Anyway, why me? Scotland Yard has an army of negotiators. And wouldn't this sort of thing be better suited to MI5?"

Jimmy stepped into one of the briefing rooms, and Talon followed on his heels. General Charles was waiting, along with two of his aides. He'd obviously caught the tail-end of Talon's diatribe, because he scowled as she entered the room.

"Glad you decided to grace us with your presence, Agent," he said, blowing air through his thick moustache. Jimmy offered her a look of sympathy, but did not intervene. "To answer your question, yes, this situation _could_ be handled by MI5… except for the fact that this 'Deadpool' character asked for you by your codename. If your cover's been blown, we need to find out how. Take a seat. We're on a tight deadline."

She sat as requested, and the General brought up video footage on the table's built-in monitor. It showed shaky images of a dozen uniformed bank staff standing in front of the windows, all of them in ridiculous teapot poses. Whoever was holding the camera moved on, and the lens picked up a group of civilians cowering on the floor. Then the camera turned, settling on a man in a red and black costume. It really didn't look anything like Spider Man.

"Who took the video?" she asked, when the screen went black.

"We sent in one of our boys disguised as a delivery driver. Sandwiches and pies, if you must know. Lunch for the hostages, at the request of the criminal."

The General pressed a button on the table, and an audio clip started to play.

" _This is Deadpool. And let me state for the record, I object to the term 'violent crime.' I've been very civil so far…"_

He switched the audio off, and turned to Talon. "Accent's clearly American. Any idea who we're dealing with here?"

She shook her head. There was something familiar about the voice, but she couldn't place it.

"Well, you've got ten minutes to figure it out. The ranking officer at the scene, Inspector White, is waiting to kit you out with a bullet-proof vest. Agent Knight will go with you, to be your comms link." Jimmy nodded in understanding. "So far we've managed to keep the media away, but sooner or later they're going to get wind of this. What we _don_ _'t_ want is a body-count. Find a way to stop whatever's going on in there, by any means necessary. Dismissed."

Talon slid off the chair and left the room with Jimmy in tow. Before they'd gone even a half-dozen paces, Talon sent a thought to her handler.

" _General Charles is an ass. He just can't get it into his head that he's not in the military anymore."_

" _He might be an ass, but he's also your direct superior,"_ Jimmy thought back. _"Maybe you shouldn't antagonise him so much._

" _Maybe he shouldn't be an ass so much._ " She reached into her pocket, took out a bottle of tablets, and tipped two small pills into her hand before swallowing them whole.

"Your head's bothering you again?"

Talon looked up, met concern in his blue eyes.

"That's what happens when I'm drafted in from my first day off in six weeks," she said. "I get work-related migraines."

"Don't try to down-play it. Your migraines have been getting worse for the past eighteen months. A few years ago, you got two or three each year. Now, you get two or three in as many weeks."

"Obviously I need a longer break. Maybe after this bank thing I'll go to the Seychelles. Won't be as easy for the Chief to haul me back from there."

Jimmy shook his head, and held open the stairwell door for her. "You're not at all concerned, are you?"

"What do I have to be concerned about? I've had a dozen medical tests and more head-scans than I can shake a stick at. They say there's nothing wrong with me. And it's not like I'm losing my abilities. If anything, they're getting stronger."

"Still, I'm worried about you."

"You're paid to be worried about me."

He sighed. "About this 'bank thing.' Have you considered that if this Deadpool guy knows your name, he might also know what you can do?"

"Of course I've considered it. It was the first thing that crossed my mind. Relax, Jimmy. I'll handle it. And after I'm done… Seychelles. Wanna come?"

"You know the Seychelles is hot and sunny, right?"

"So I'll take a hat and be horribly miserable whilst enjoying the peace and quiet of pristine beaches out of tourist season."

"Let's handle this bank thing first. Afterwards we can discuss your next holiday. Deal?"

"Very well," she sighed.

They stepped out of the stairwell and into the cool darkness of the underground car park. The silver Aston was still waiting in the bay, the driver obviously forewarned that his services were still needed.

"Come, m'lady," Jimmy said, opening the passenger door with a mock flourish of an imaginary cloak. "Your chariot awaits."

* * *

 _Deadpool_ _'s Note: If you don't know who Talon is (shame on you!) go read the story called "No I in Team." Or just read chapters 4 and 5, to get the skinny. Don't worry, I'll give you some time to go do that, you won't miss anything here. And don't forget to type something in the box below if you enjoyed this chapter. Or if you hated it. Or if you feel strongly about the gun-culture prevalent in today's society. Whatevs._

 _In other news, my author went to see that latest Men In Tights film recently_ _—Civil War—and we both agree it_ _'s a crime against humanity that those MCU asshates negotiated with Sony for the use of Spider Douche in their movie, but never even thought to contact me. Imagine the fun I could have had with those guys… hitting on the Scarlet Witch, hitching a ride on the back of Falcon or War Machine, challenging the Winter Soldier to who-is-the-most-badass-government-created-super-weapon contests… of course, I would have had to switch sides seven or eight times during THAT fight (you know the one) and end up killing Tony Stark because no man should get away with wearing that much eyeliner. I just don't get it; were they afraid of how sexy I'd make their movie? That my mere presence would push the rating up to R and make it unwatchable for children everywhere? If you love me as much as you should, you'll sign my petition to be included in the next MCU movie phase. I don't have the petition yet, but you can start it for me. Go, shoo!_


	4. Negotiation

Legacy

 _4\. Negotiation  
(in which somebody dies! Gasp!)_

* * *

 **Location: Bank of England  
Camden Town... England  
13:11 HRS**

Inspector White turned out to be aptly named. His mane of white hair ended where his white beard and moustache began, giving him the appearance of a very pale lion. He towered over Talon's slender five-foot three-inch frame, and offered her a firm handshake.

"So, you're real," he said. She lifted one eyebrow questioningly. "Was beginning to think that madman in the Spidey costume had made you up. Mind if I ask; you ever been in a hostage situation before?"

"Once or twice," she said. "But I'd welcome any advice you care to give me."

He looked surprised by that, and ordered one of his men to fetch the smallest sized protective vest whilst he brought her up to speed.

"You'd expect most people who brandish a gun in a bank to be holding up the place, trying to get at the money. So far, this chap's shown no interest. Now, normal policy is to never give in to the demands of criminals; makes them think they can get away with their nefarious activities. But we gave in on the lunch situation so that your department could send someone to recon. You've seen the footage?" She nodded. "There's a fire escape at the rear of the building, but for security reasons it's tied into the fire system and won't disengage unless the alarm trips. We've got sharp-shooters in place, and a team of officers ready to storm the place if necessary, but your superiors seem to think you can handle this without backup."

"They're probably right," she agreed, as she was strapped into a vest. It was pulled tight, making breathing a chore. "But it doesn't hurt to have your people ready to swoop in, just in case."

"My thoughts exactly."

 _I know,_ she thought, but didn't say. Better that he believed they were on the same wavelength. He probably wouldn't be thrilled to discover she'd read his mind and determined the best way to handle him was accept his professional opinion and defer to his wealth of experience.

One of the officers gave a box to White, and he opened it to show Talon its contents.

"Wire. Similar to the one we used on the last bloke who went in, only this has an ear-piece so we can get audio feedback."

"Thank you, but that won't be necessary." She gestured to her handler. "Agent Knight here will convey all that I see and hear. Better than you don't ask how; MI6 secrets."

Inspector White shrugged. "Whatever you say, Agent. As far as I'm concerned, you're running the show now. Just let me know where you want my shooters to aim, and when you want them to fire. I'll leave the rest up to you."

"I'll keep you apprised," she assured him.

White wandered off to join a group of police officers beside one of the cars, and Talon glanced at the building under siege. The snipers had it surrounded, but everything seemed quiet so far. Closing her eyes, she allowed a tendril of consciousness to drift away from her mind, towards the bank, opening herself up to the emotions of those within. Fear and tension were most palpable, but there was some amount of confusion, and also embarrassment. The bank staff were responsible for the latter, she suspected, forced to stand as they were in a ridiculous pose.

"Hey," Jimmy said, touching her elbow. As she opened her eyes and pulled her mind back into her body, she caught a brief echo of emotions; he'd mistaken her mental probing for concern, or migraine. Talon gave him a tight smile.

"I'm fine," she assured him. "Are you ready for the link?"

"As I'll ever be."

She reached out and touched his left temple with her fingertips, establishing a mental link between their minds. For the briefest of seconds her vision blurred as she received two sets of visual input; hers, and Jimmy's. Then she focused on her own eyes, felt her senses settle back down.

" _You okay?"_ she asked. It was always easier for her to adapt to the mental link, than the person she was linking with. Jimmy was a pro, her handler of six years, but it still took his brain a few minutes to adapt to seeing and hearing and smelling things that Jimmy himself wasn't seeing and hearing and smelling. The worst part, though, was the vertigo. Seeing the world through the eyes of someone so much shorter than himself always made him go dizzy.

" _Yeah,"_ he thought back, his mental voice clear across the link. " _Just reminded once again how different everything looks from down there. Like my nose. So much bigger when you_ _'re looking up at it."_

A smile tugged at her lips, and she turned to face the bank.

" _Be careful in there,"_ he cautioned.

" _Don't worry. We'll be in the Seychelles before you know it."_

o - o - o - o - o

Deadpool watched dispassionately as Tom the Manager writhed around on the floor, hands clutched to his throat, eyes wide as he gasped for breath.

"Hmm, I dunno," he said. "Is it that new Star Trek film? The Wrath of Khan? Because I haven't seen that one yet."

"The Wrath of Khan isn't the newest film," said Dave. "There's a newer one out, now. The Search for Spock. It's supposed to be pretty good."

"Then I have a lot of catching up to do."

Tom stood up, shook his head, and wiggled his ear lobe with his fingers.

"Sounds like," Deadpool said.

The manager held up all eight fingers, and then made a generic gesture for 'really big.' Then he pointed to his third finger, followed by miming digging with a spade.

Mandy, whose job it was to advise people on their mortgage repayments, said 'Ooh!' and shot her hand up into the air.

"Alright, Mandy," Deadpool said.

"The Great Escape!"

"That's right!" said Tom. "I'm glad _somebody_ got it."

"That was the worst Great Escape charade _ever_ ," Deadpool complained. "What was with all the choking? I thought you were having an epileptic fit."

"That was Charles Bronson's character, Danny Velinski, suffering from claustrophobia."

"Coulda fooled me. Anyway, it's your turn, Mandy."

The start of Mandy's charade was interrupted by the ringing of the phone on Tom's desk. Deadpool reached over the empty box of pies and picked up the receiver.

"International House of Fun, this is Deadpool, how may I direct your call?"

"This is Inspector White," the voice returned. "I'm calling to let you know that Talon's here and she's ready to enter the bank."

"Took you long enough. I've been waiting nearly forty-five minutes, you know. If these hostages didn't have such a high entertainment value, two of them would be dead by now."

"Her car got stuck in traffic."

"Well, whatever. Just send her in. And no funny business. Owing to my leniency, I still have those ten or eleven bullets."

He hung up the receiver and waited. After a silence of a few seconds he heard the bank door open, and two of the teapots stepped aside. A woman walked forward, her face so familiar that his head spun as the half-remembered dream hit him like a sledge-hammer. She looked a little thinner than he remembered, all traces of youthful fleshiness burnt away, but he suspected that he would never forget those piercing green eyes for as long as he lived.

He pointed the gun at Tom.

"If you even think about reading my mind," he said to the woman, "I'll kill him."

Talon merely blinked slowly, as if waking from a trance. "Well. Then you don't have anything to worry about." Her voice was low, soft, cultured without being posh. "I already tried reading your mind, and can't." She held up both hands, showing she was unarmed. "Why don't you let some of these people go? As a show of good faith."

"I've already refrained from shooting them as a show of good faith." He kept the gun trained on Tom, but watched her closely as she took another step forward. Was she lying, about not being able to read his mind? But if she _could_ read his mind, make him see things that weren't there, wouldn't she have done it already? Wouldn't he already be on the floor, bleeding profusely?

It didn't make much sense, but that seemed par for the course these days. Still, if she _couldn_ _'t_ read his mind, he had an advantage. An unexpected but pleasant advantage. Already he'd decided to not tell her who he was, to trust to his costume to keep his identity secret. His reasoning was simple; whatever Talon had once been to him, she wasn't that any more. Regardless of what had happened with the champagne bath, she was not a part of his life, and probably hadn't been for some time. And, very likely, that was his fault. And if it was his fault, she would probably be pissed at him. He had a feeling that, prior to his incarceration, he spent a lot of time around people who were pissed at him for one reason or another.

"If you let some of them go, it would be even _more_ of a show of good faith," she countered.

"Yeah, you're not really selling that idea well." He aimed a glare at the manager, then remembered that nobody could see his glares because of his mask. A shame, because he really liked glaring. "Tom, get the lady a seat."

Tom hurried to fetch his own chair, and placed it down behind Talon.

"I'd prefer to stand, actually," she said.

"And I'd prefer it if you sat." He transferred his gun aim, pointing it now at her head. "Please."

She sat, used the opportunity to look around, glancing at the customers, the staff, the ceiling… possibly looking for an alternative route in. Not that she'd find one; banks weren't well-known for having multiple routes of ingress. Security was one of their defining features.

"Why are you doing this?" she asked.

"Straight to the million-dollar question, huh? All right then. Why am I doing this? To get your attention, of course."

Talon laughed, but it was a cold sound, devoid of humour. "I'm flattered. But why me? I don't even know who you are."

"You might not know who _I_ am, but I know who _you_ are. And I also knew that I wouldn't be able to find you by conventional means. That your government would deny all knowledge of your existence. 'Cos that's what governments do."

She held out her hands. "Well, here I am. What now?"

"Now you come with me, and all these people go back to their homes, and possibly find new places of employment. I'd recommend Taco Bell, if you have those here. Less risky."

"And where might we be going?"

"Back to America."

"I see." She leant back in the chair and tapped her chin thoughtfully with one finger. Her eyes glazed over briefly, and when she looked up at him again he thought he saw the glint of the humour that had been absent from her laugh. "You do realise, yes, that the police aren't just going to allow you to walk out of here with a hostage? Not even if that hostage is me?"

"They would if you made them. Do your little parlour trick. Make them put their guns down."

"And why would I do that?"

"Uh, because I'll shoot you if you don't?"

"So, let me get this straight," she said, her voice taking on an air of patient superiority, "you've come here all the way from America—illegally, I have to assume, since you weren't clocked at any of the air and sea ports—to get to me. You've travelled thousands of miles to bring me back with you, but if I don't comply, you'll kill me? I find that hard to believe."

"I never said anything about killing you," he replied. This was not going well. Talon's stupid logic was busting up his hastily-laid escape plans. "If I shoot you in the arm, or the leg, you won't die."

"On the other hand," she said, "I have no idea why you want to take me to America. Given the nature of your actions here, I can only assume it's for something dangerous, violent or illegal, and I won't be party to anything like that. I'd rather order those snipers to shoot you, even at the risk of hitting me, than allow you to coerce me into criminal activities. You really haven't thought this through very well, have you?"

He had no response to that. This plan, like most of his plans, sounded good on paper, but in execution left something to be desired. Most of that 'something' was success. But the fortune teller lady had said Talon would help him! He'd hinged this madness on her prediction!

 **Though, now I come to think about it, Mrs Bao said I** **'d find somebody here who** _ **can**_ **help me. Not someone who** _ **will**_ **help me. Ohhh poop.**

Talon leant forward in her chair, green eyes boring into his mask.

"Tell me why you want me to go to America with you," she said. Her voice was everywhere; it was echoing around the room, and caressing his spine in way that made chills run across his body. It was in his ears, and his head, and it was both a request and a command. "I'll consider your response."

And suddenly, he realised that he _had_ to tell her. It was the only way to gain her trust and her help. Besides, she'd find out sooner or later why he needed a telepath. And yet… something in him rebelled against telling her. Wanted to keep _something_ back.

"The American military is performing experiments on mutants," he said. "Killing them. Turning them into weapons. I need you to come back with me to… to find proof. To expose their lies and avenge those killed over the years."

"So in order to expose one crime, you would commit another?"

"It's not the same."

"Prove it. Let some of these hostages go. You don't need all these people. Like you said, you've only got ten or eleven bullets left."

"Yeah, but I never said the gun was my _only_ weapon." His hand twitched, but he refrained from sliding out one of his blades. It would only cause a panic amongst the hostages. "Fine," he said. "You can have some of the hostages. The men can go free."

"It's usual custom to let the women go free."

"But I wanna see if the men will abandon the women. Call it a social experiment. Alright you men, you can stop being teapots and stop cowering on the floor, and leave if you want to. All except you, Dave. I like you. And you stay too, Tom, 'cos I _don_ _'t_ like you."

The men looked rather sheepish. A few glanced to each other, trying to build a consensus, a feeling of camaraderie, a mental agreement of _if we ALL abandon the women, then it_ _'s not as if we're being individual cowards._ In the end, they didn't need a second invitation. En mass, they left. But because this was England, they left in a very orderly fashion, with no pushing or shoving, whilst the women shot death-glares at them.

"So," Deadpool continued, once the bank door was closed again, "I've scratched your back. Now you scratch mine."

"I'll have to consult with my superiors," Talon said. "The choice isn't mine to make."

"Your superiors have fifteen minutes to reach the right decision."

"Fifteen minutes is all I'll need," she assured him.

o - o - o - o - o

General Charles and his aides had arrived at the scene by the time Talon stepped out of the bank. The first thing she noticed was that the sun had come out whilst she'd been inside, and it now shone brightly, making its best attempt to blind her. She scowled at it, and mentally wished for clouds.

The second thing to draw her attention was the group of male former hostages, who'd been rounded up by the police and led off to one side of the road, where they would undoubtedly be offered therapy by trained officers.

"Agent Talon," the General called, beckoning her over to the small group which had gathered around him. Jimmy was there, looking very concerned, and Inspector White, looking rather pleased. The General's face was, as always, a practised mask of neutrality.

"Sir?" she queried.

"Care to tell me why you're playing along with this madman?"

"Because you told me to resolve the situation by any means necessary, sir."

"And by that I meant you should get inside his damn head and get him to put down the damn gun." He moustache was quivering. Not a good sign.

"I tried," she said, telling him the same thing she'd told Deadpool. "For one reason or another, I can't read his mind, much less create illusions to disarm him."

"Still, you managed to get half the hostages out," said Inspector White. "That's a step in the right direction."

The General grumbled something, then cleared his voice.

"Yes, yes, good work so far, Agent. The Chief has been observing the situation here. Since you've made contact with the criminal, he'd like your recommendation on how to proceed."

Talon felt both eyebrows rise up in surprise. The Chief had _never_ asked for her opinion before. Usually he only took advice from senior staff. Of course, he probably already knew what her recommendation would be. The Chief never asked a question unless he already had the answer.

"If the American military _is_ creating weapons out of mutants," she said, "then finding proof would give us a card to play against them in the future."

"Need I remind you, Agent, that the Americans are our allies?"

"Are they?" Jimmy asked, jumping on the bandwagon even if he couldn't see where it was going just yet. "Didn't they claim to have ceased their Super-Soldier program in the sixties? If what this 'Deadpool' says is true, then either the previous administration lied to us, or elements within the government have gone rogue."

"We still have contacts within Congress," Talon continued. "Agent Knight can pursue leads here, whilst I do footwork in the States. If we can find evidence of lies or corruption, or even raw data on the experiments the US military has been running—"

" _Allegedly_ running," General Charles interrupted, ever the voice of skepticism.

"Then we'd have leverage, and information we might be able to use to our advantage."

"And you'd be at the mercy of a criminal," he pointed out. "Do you have any idea who this guy is, or how he knows who _you_ are?"

"No. But that's something else I could try to find out. It could be that he's just some quack hacker who's read my name on some system he's cracked."

"Finding out who he is, and how he knows about you, should be your first priority," the General advised. "If, of course, the Chief moves on your suggestion."

"Of course."

He grunted. "I'll go and make the call now. He knows we're on a deadline."

"'Scuse me, but what should I do with the released hostages?" White asked.

"Keep them together for now," Jimmy told him. "We'll need to… question them… later."

White nodded, and went off to organise things. Jimmy waited until he was out of earshot before speaking to Talon. Sometimes he completely forgot about the mental link.

"Are you sure you want to do this?"

"I wouldn't have suggested it if I wasn't sure," she replied. "I think that whatever this is, it's important enough to warrant our attention."

"What about the Seychelles?"

She smiled. "Last I checked, they weren't going anywhere. They'll still be there when this mission's over."

"Provided, of course, that the Chief goes for your recommendation."

"He will."

"I suspect you're right." He gave her shoulder a gentle squeeze. "I'm going to get us a coffee from that shop on the corner. Give the owner something to do other than rubber-necking. We're going to have to do a lot of damage control before this day's over, you know."

"I know," she sighed, already _very_ familiar with what 'damage control' was code for.

She watched him cross the road and disappear into the coffee shop, then turned to look at the bank once more. Yes, the Seychelles could wait. Now that she'd finally remembered why that voice sounded so familiar, she had a new mission. A new _mystery_. She had to figure out why Wade Wilson was dressing up in a costume and calling himself Deadpool… and why the hell she couldn't read his mind anymore.

o - o - o - o - o

Deadpool glanced at the clock on the wall. 2.37pm. He'd had no sleep since arriving in England, no sleep on the flight over, and no sleep in the ten hours preceding his personal encounter with hypothermia. Which, by his amazing calculation of mathematical wizardry, meant he was missing SOME hours which he should have spent unconscious.

Not that he was tired. No, he was far too busy being freaked out by the fact that he'd lost some time. Or gained some time. He wasn't sure which. All he knew was that he wouldn't get his time fixed until he returned to America. Somehow, a small portion of his life had been sucked into a timezone black-hole, and the result was he didn't know whether he should be hungry or sleepy, wasn't sure if he was awake when he should have been asleep, and couldn't decide whether GMT was a cooler acronym than EST.

He drummed his fingers on the desk. His patience, not his strongest attribute in the first place, was wearing thin. Talon was five minutes overdue with a decision from her superiors. Everybody seemed to determined to push their luck; it was almost as if they didn't _believe_ he'd shoot one of the hostages. Well, he'd just have to prove them wrong! It was long past time he showed them how serious he was.

Just as he was halfway through mentally counting Eeny Meeny Miny Moe to decide which of the remaining sixteen hostages would be shot first, the bank door opened to admit Talon.

"Okay," she said. "You have a deal. There are, however, conditions."

"I dislike conditions. They're too restrictive. But… in the interests of international co-operation, I'm willing to hear you out," he said, which he felt was _very_ generous of him.

"First, I call the shots. I'm not risking the whole operation because you start getting ideas. You accept my help by deferring to my experience."

"Fair enough." A condition easily side-stepped, once they got back to America.

"Second, whatever evidence we find, I get a copy of it. All of it. Data, test results, communications, invoices and itineraries, bills for the government's lunch expenses… you don't get to hold anything back from me."

"Fine," he agreed. It wouldn't matter anyway. Talon could do whatever she liked with her evidence, as long as Deadpool got his revenge. As long as Connie's murder didn't go unpunished.

"Last but most important; we're done when I say we're done. If I feel we've gathered enough evidence, we stop."

"Wouldn't have it any other way." He was fairly certain he could talk her into seeing it through until he'd meted out slow, bloody vengeance. "Right then, let's go."

She held up her hand to stall him, and shook her head. "I can't go yet. There are things I need to do first."

His eyes narrowed in suspicion. "What things?"

"Well, I have to pack a bag. You can't expect me to travel without a change of clothes and some personal items."

"Ah yes. A change of clothes. I'd forgotten how much women like having those." Talon arched one dark eyebrow up at that, and he quickly continued. "That's a ten minute job."

"I also need to arrange transport to the airport—"

"Airport of my choice," he interrupted. "I'm not giving you people chance to assemble a hit-squad to take me out as we get on a plane."

"And I need to arrange for someone to look after my cat."

"What's your cat's name?"

"Mr Kitty."

"That's a stupid name."

"Whatever you say, _Deadpool,_ " she sniped.

"Hey, don't diss the name."

"At any rate," she continued, tallying off one last point on her finger, "before I can leave, I need to clean up the mess you've made here."

"Sounds ominous."

"I'll need an hour," she said. "To put everything in order, get my bag, and prepare us transport."

"One hour," he agreed. "And this time, don't keep me waiting."

o - o - o - o - o

As the silver Aston pulled into the _reserved_ bay beneath MI6 headquarters, Talon finished relaying instructions to Jimmy.

"…then there's that Nigerian postal scam I've been collating data on," she said. "You'll want to follow that up in about a week."

"Consider it done," he replied.

"And don't forget about the pick-up in Russia that needs to be arranged for next Friday."

"I _was_ at the mission briefing, you know."

She offered a wan smile. "I know. But I feel like I'm dumping everything on you. I just don't want anything to be overlooked."

Jimmy stepped out of the car and held open the door for her. "If you ask me, these past ten months behind a desk have turned you into a worrier."

"I'm not worried," she assured him. "Just… professionally concerned. Oh, and will you take care of Mr Kitty for me?"

"I'll treat him as if he was my own," Jimmy promised. Together they entered the stairwell, and began to climb. "Do you have enough meds?"

"I still have a two week supply left."

"Good. Get in touch when you need more, and I'll arrange a drop-off. And please don't wait until you're down to your last two pills and in the middle of a mind-shattering migraine."

"Yes, mother." Outside the office they shared, she stopped with her hand resting on the door handle. "Would you mind giving me a few minutes?" She glanced at her watch, calculating what time it would be in the States. "I have to make a call."

"Sure," he shrugged. Then, his face darkened. "Wait a minute. You're not calling _him_ , are you?"

"As a matter of fact, I am. Why? Is that a problem?"

"You haven't spoken to him in almost five years."

"So glad you keep tabs on my calls," she said dryly.

"I just don't think it's a good idea. I mean, you'll be in America within twenty-four hours. Why draw attention to that fact?"

"Because sooner or later, he'll discover that I'm in the country. Better that he hear about it from me."

"Alright, it's your call. But personally? I think you should try to fly under the radar."

"Thanks for the advice. I'll only be a few minutes. I've still gotta swing by my apartment and pack a bag before heading back to the bank to collect my new 'partner.'"

Jimmy shook his head and wandered off. She didn't need any mental link to know his thoughts at that moment. He'd despaired over her stubbornness more than once since she'd been taken off active duty and stuck behind a desk. It would be good to get back out in the field again, if only to get away from his hen-pecking.

In the office, she took a seat behind her desk, sinking into the comfortable chair, and switched on her computer terminal. It took only a few seconds to boot up, in which she forced her hands to stillness on the desk in front of her, preventing them from toying with her hair. Her hair was fine as it was. And if it was a little messy, because she hadn't combed it properly before being dragged out of her house by one of the department's drivers, so what? This wasn't a personal call, as such. It was strictly professional. And even if it _had_ been a personal call, it wouldn't have mattered how her hair looked because she no longer had reason to want to look nice for him.

But that didn't stop her fingers from twitching impatiently.

When the dialling program activated, she tapped a series of numbers into the keypad. Numbers which had been seared into her memory. Numbers she hoped he hadn't changed since their rather tumultuous parting.

The speakers chimed out a ringing tone. Once. Twice. Thrice. Four times. Talon glanced again at her watch. It was mid-morning, in America. He wouldn't be in bed, asleep. Not at this hour.

On the seventh ring the line picked up, and the computer monitor sprang to life, receiving real-time video footage. The man behind the expansive desk looked exactly as Talon remembered him; brown hair bisected neatly by white wings the only real sign of his age. A black eyepatch covered his left eye, giving him an air of roguish venerability. As always, he looked like he was a day overdue for a shave, a shadow of facial hair clinging to the chiselled planes of his face. The dark blue uniform he wore was undecorated, save for the white stripe along the collar. He moved, bringing his broad shoulders back, steepling his fingers together as he observed his own video screen.

"Well," he said. "This is a surprise."

"Hello, Nicholas."

"Harriet," he returned. "I never thought I'd hear from _you_ again."

"And yet you kept the back-door number you gave me," she pointed out.

"Just in case. So. Should we exchange pleasantries, or do you want to get right to the point and tell me why you've called after all this time?"

"You look well, Nicholas."

"Pleasantries it is, then," he grunted. "And how have you been, Harriet? Your new role as an administrator suits you well, I trust?"

"Well enough." She didn't bother asking how he'd heard about her removal from active duty. Nick Fury was the world's second best when it came to espionage.

"Would you like to reminisce about old times, as well?"

She fought back a grimace at his veiled hostility. Perhaps she should have listened to Jimmy after all. "I haven't called to reminisce," she said. "I called to tell you that I have business in America. I'll be arriving in a week or two."

"How high should I expect the body count to be this time?"

"I beg your pardon?"

"You were here three years ago, weren't you?"

"Yes. On holiday."

"In D.C." It was not a question.

"That's right. I was sightseeing."

"Sightseeing in the same city where Senator Nielson was murdered."

Talon smiled. "Ah yes, I read something about that in the newspaper. Killed by a prostitute, I believe? Hell of a way to go."

"I suppose it's just a coincidence that Senator Nielson died the same week you were sightseeing in D.C."

"Yes. A strange and untimely coincidence."

"And it just happens to be a coincidence that when the dead Senator's affairs were investigated, it was discovered he'd been blackmailing a British ambassador."

"You don't say!"

"Indeed. And it was rather fortuitous, from the ambassador's point of view, that Senator Nielson's body was discovered in a brothel. It cast aspersions on the Senator's formerly good name, and meant that when the information about the ambassador was brought to the attention of the media by one of the Senator's lackeys, nobody gave it much credence."

"I agree, that _was_ rather fortuitous."

He sighed, placed both hands on his desk and leant forwards. "Must we play this game, Harriet?"

"This game, Nicholas, is called politics. You know as well as I that the only way to stop playing the game is to leave it. Terminally. Now, I contacted you out of professional courtesy. And, out of professional courtesy, I'm advising you to stay out of my way. My business in America has nothing to do with you. I'm investigating something on behalf of a friend, and there's not going to be any body-count."

"I wish I could believe that." For a wonder, he sounded like he truly meant it.

"Believe it or not, it's the truth."

"My advice to you, Harriet, is whatever business you have in America, leave it to someone else. If you come here, I'll find you. I have a lot of questions that you _will_ provide answers for."

"Then I guess I'll see you in a couple of weeks. Goodbye, Nicholas."

She disconnected the line, watched the ghostly after-image of the man and the desk fade from the monitor. That was a conversation which could have gone better. But it could have gone worse, too. At least she'd have a week or two to operate in the States, before SHIELD would start looking for her. She could do a lot, in a week or two.

With a deep sigh, she down-powered the computer once more, and hid her best pen under a pile of junk in her drawer so that Jimmy couldn't pilfer it whilst she was away. Then she left, to find her handler. She had just enough time to make a detour to her apartment to pack a few things before heading back to the bank. One more mess to clean up, then she'd be back in the game.

o - o - o - o - o

The scream of police sirens. The smell of petrol interlaced with strong coffee from the nearby café. The shocked stares of shoppers on the street. Inspector White clocked it all as he stepped out of his car and took refuge behind it. Armed officers were mere seconds behind him, each using their vehicles as cover, their rifles steady, aimed at the bank.

"Someone fetch me a damn phone!" he commanded.

"Sir! Look!"

He glanced in the direction PC Grant was pointing. Right at the front entrance, where a group of employees were coming out, their hands up in the air, poised to surrender.

"I am _so so so so_ sorry," one of the bank workers said.

A man in a suit scowled at him and and approached White.

"It's David's fault," the man said. "He saw a bra…err, child, with his mother, carrying a toy gun. Playing at Axis and Allies or some nonsense like that. David thought the child was carrying a _real_ gun, and triggered his panic alarm." David cringed, the recipient of another scowl. "Needless to say, he'll be undertaking further training in the proper activation of security alarms. Thomas Moor, Manager." He offered his hand.

White stood up, gestured at his men to stand down. The guns were withdrawn. The sirens silenced. Somebody went for coffee.

"It's no problem," the Inspector assured the manager. "Better to be safe than sorry. All I need to hear is that nobody's hurt and nobody's in danger."

"We're all fine," Mr Moor said. But it was odd… his face was rather sweaty.

"Good to hear. Of course, I'll have to send in a couple of the boys, to make sure everything's alright. You understand."

"Yes, I understand." A bead of sweat trickled down Moor's cheek. "I completely understand. You're just doing your job, sir."

"Yes. I'm just doing my job."

He gestured for two of his team to check the bank out. PC Grant turned up two minutes later with a cup of coffee, courtesy of the local café owner. White sipped it, and waited. When the two officers returned from their check of the bank, they reported all was well. The panic button had been reset, and there was no danger.

"Alright," said White. "We'll report back that we've attended a false alarm and made sure the premises is safe. PC Grant, will you write up the log?"

"Sir."

White ordered the escort vehicles to return to the station, or to resume their usual patrol. He waited at the scene until everybody was back in the bank. Then he turned to Grant.

"What time is it, Grant?"

PC Grant checked his watch.

"4.34pm, sir."

"Hmm. It feels like only two minutes ago we were sitting in the station, looking over last night's arrest reports."

"Yes, sir. The day has certainly gone quickly."

"Oh well, let's get back to the office. We're obviously not needed here."

"Yes, sir."

The last police car left, and business returned to normal. A few people who'd visited the bank earlier in the day shared Inspector White's feeling of lost time, of having been gone for longer than initially intended… but nobody thought too much on it. The mind tended to play tricks on a person, especially when it was overworked, as most minds in London were.

It was only the next day that Tom the Manager realised the camera in the bank was broken. Completely shattered, as if it had been destroyed by some force. But the camera was easily twelve feet up the wall, and therefore not reachable by anybody without ladders. Tom would certainly have noticed somebody climbing up there to destroy the bank's CCTV camera. He merely ordered a replacement.

Three days later, one of the cleaning staff pointed out something very strange. There was a small hole in the ceiling. When one of the building supervisors was sent up there, to assess what had caused the damage, the man returned with a bullet he'd pulled from the plaster.

Tom thought that very strange. Very strange indeed. So he had the hole re-plastered, flushed the bullet down the toilet, and never mentioned it to anybody for as long as he lived.

Ten days later he was hit by a bus, and interred in a Greenwich cemetery.

* * *

 _Deadpool_ _'s Note: If you want to read a brief tale about Talon's exploits in D.C., you should head over to The Author's blog (mrurbanspaceman dot wordpress dot com) and search for the flash-fiction story called "Talon". Or just click the June 2013 archive, where you'll find the piece. Yes, June 2013. That's how long ago The Author was plotting my sequel-sequel and providing a back-story for my new partner in crime. This was before the Great Hard-Drive Crash of 2014, of course. We're still trying to recover from that._

 _Also, any Samuel L. Fury fans will likely be disappointed, as we_ _'re using the REAL Fury in my story. Or one of the REAL Fury's super-authentic LMDs. Who knows? I certainly don't. Maybe we'll never find out. FURY: Accept no alternatives._

 _R.I.P. Tom._

 _P.S. You may have noticed that The Author_ _—MY AUTHOR—is spending actual time which could be spent on ME, writing about OTHER PEOPLE who are ENTIRELY FICTITIOUS, unlike me who is TOTALLY REAL. If you want The Author to keep writing about yours truly, and not some other lame guy who was stupid enough to get himself captured and tortured and brain-washed into becoming a secret sneaky ninja assassin killing machine, then write some things in the box below to this effect. Alternatively, if you could convince The Author to horribly disfigure that other guy with terminal cancer-skin, I guess that would be a suitable compromise. Please start your comments with_ _"OK to Maim"_


	5. Leaving On A Jet Plane

Legacy

 _5\. Leaving On A Jet Plane  
(in which I discover I have a kid)_

* * *

 **Location: A Car  
The M1 Motorway, England  
17:12 HRS**

The mood in the car was tense. The driver drove in silence, which probably had something to do with the fact that he had a gun pointed at his head. Talon made the most of the opportunity, and tried several more times to get inside Deadpool's mind. It was an exercise in futility. His mind was unreadable. His emotions intangible. He formed a Deadpool-shaped hole on a motorway filled with the thoughts and emotions of commuters.

It was perplexing, to say the least. Talon was absolutely certain that this man was Wade Wilson, though it had been many years since she'd seen him, and she'd only spent a few hours in his company. He was the right size, the right shape, and his voice matched her memory of him. But this mental barrier was something new. The number of people who could keep her out of their minds… well, they were few and far between. Although it was possible to attempt to hide thoughts from a telepath, it wasn't possible for someone who had no telepathic ability to block a telepath out completely. And yet somehow, Wade Wilson had accomplished it.

She had a thousand questions she wanted to ask him, but she did not want to give away the fact that she knew who he was. So far, he seemed to believe that he had the upper hand. For as long as he continued to believe it, she could play along, pretend to be none the wiser, let him continue believing that he was in control. In the meantime, she had to try to tease the information out of him. Make him believe he was volunteering it, rather than being cajoled into it. This would not be an easy task.

"Where are we going?" she asked, glancing across to him. He had the seat directly behind the driver, who was the only hostage now. Talon didn't bother pointing out that if Wade shot the driver whilst they were travelling at seventy miles per hour, they would both be in for a world of hurt.

"America."

"Yes, I gathered that. But which _airport_ are we heading towards? The driver needs a destination."

"Just head north."

North. It was the only direction he'd given, when leaving London, and already the car was passing through the Watford Gap.

"North is all well and good," she explained, trying to be patient despite her growing headache, "but we aren't in America yet. We don't have the benefit of another large country to our north. In a few hours we're going to run out of land, and if you want to keep going north, you'll have to take a ferry and by then you'll be in the Arctic Circle. I can guarantee, they don't have any international airports up there."

"Fine, then head for Edinburgh. We can take the eleven o'clock flight to Dallas."

So the driver continued heading north. Every so often, Deadpool would glance out of the back window, and instruct the driver to change lanes. He seemed determined to find pursuers, even though there were none. From her mental like with Jimmy, which she'd lost on the outskirts of the City, Talon knew that the Chief had given the mission his full backing. Signed her back on to active duty. Saved her from another ten months of tedious desk-work.

As the car approached Birmingham, Deadpool ordered the driver to turn off at the next junction and head for the city's airport. The man didn't question the order, simply indicated and pulled off the motorway at the next turn-off, eventually joining the Spaghetti Junction.

"Why Birmingham?" Talon asked, as the driver expertly navigated the nightmarish collection of motorways and roads draped above the rivers, train-lines and canals.

"Because I already told you Edinburgh, which is where all your SWAT teams will now be gathering. I doubt they'll have time to get to Birmingham airport before we do."

"There _are_ no SWAT teams," she assured him. "I told you; MI6 has given the mission the green light. Nobody's going to try to stop us."

"Well forgive me if I don't take your _government_ _'s_ word for that."

"You can take _my_ word for that."

"We'll see when we get to Birmingham."

Talon closed her eyes and leant back on the seat. If this _was_ Wade Wilson—and despite his acquisition of telepath-blocking abilities or technology, she had no reason to believe it _wasn_ _'t_ him—then he'd become far more paranoid than she would ever have suspected. What had happened to him, to make him like this? To cause him to wear some stupid costume and pretend to be something he was not?

And, more importantly, how could she get him to trust her?

o - o - o - o - o

Deadpool put the pistol back in a pocket of his utility belt and stepped out of the car. Talon grabbed her carryall from the front seat and followed mutely. She'd been quiet for the past half hour… maybe trying to contact her superiors telepathically to tell them about his last-minute change of plans. Well, they were too late to stop him now. The airport doors beckoned.

"Here's what we're going to do," Deadpool said, as he led the way into the concrete and glass monstrosity. "We're going to find a flight to New York and you're going to get us both on it. You're going to have to Jedi-mind-trick the customs guys into thinking I have a passport."

"May I ask how you got into the country without a passport?"

"No you may not. I enjoy being enigmatic."

"As you wish."

He kept a close eye on her as she wandered through the airport to the ticket desk, which wasn't easy to do because people kept almost walking into him, despite the fact that he was taller and considerably more costumed than most of them. It was just plain rude! In front of the departures board she stopped, and they both looked up, waiting for information about the next flight to the U.S. As luck would have it, there was a plane leaving in just under an hour, heading straight for JFK.

 **Finally, something goes right for me!**

They joined the queue for the ticket desk. Deadpool was on the verge of asking why Talon didn't just use her powers to jump the queue, but remembered at the last minute that this was England, and queue-jumping was a capital offence, only slightly less severe a crime than murder and being French. Queue-jumping would draw attention, and so far Deadpool had drawn pretty much no attention despite wearing his very red costume in a very public area.

 **Hmm** **…**

"I'm not drawing attention," he said.

"No. I'm sending out a low-frequency, blanket-illusion in which you don't exist for anybody within a twenty-metre radius."

"I'm invisible?"

"Only to people within a twenty-metre radius. And not to the security cameras. So I suggest you play it cool and don't do anything stupid like—"

He hurried away from her, pilfered several chocolate bars from the nearest kiosk, and stuffed them into his utility belt. When he returned to her side, she gave him a glare simply brimming with malevolence. But he was saved from an impending lecture by the moving queue, and the irate-looking lady behind the desk shouting, "Next!"

 **All British women look angry. I wonder why. It can** **'t be because of me, because ticket-lady can't see me. And even if she** _ **could**_ **see me, she** **'d have no reason to be mad at me. I am a lovable costumed super-something.**

Talon approached the desk.

"Welcome to Birmingham airport, how may I help you today?" ticket-lady asked. She didn't sound like she particularly wanted to help. She sounded a bit like the staff at Taco Bell on the late night shift. That was to say, fed up, cheesed off, and disillusioned with life.

"I would like two adult tickets and one child ticket on the next flight to JFK airport," Talon said.

"Single or return?"

"Return in one week. And I would also like to purchase three one-way tickets to Leningrad airport, on the same day as the return from America."

"Of course. That's three return tickets to JFK, and three single tickets to Leningrad on the day of return. I will need to see your passports, please."

Deadpool watched as Talon took a passport out of her bag and handed it over. He stood on his tippy-toes, reading it upside down. He could clearly see Talon's photograph, but the name beneath it said _Jelena Borisova_.

"Who's Jelena Borisova?" he whispered to Talon.

"An identity I had generated by the MI6 database to assume whilst travelling during this mission."

"Super-cool. But why?"

"Because no British spy would ever use a Russian pseudonym. Anybody looking for British spies would look for something more obvious, like Nora Jones or Betty Green."

"Why would people be looking for British spies?"

"They wouldn't. Obviously. But just in case somebody was reviewing flight manifests of planes travelling from the UK to the US, I thought it would be prudent to pick a name that nobody like me would ever pick if they wanted to enter the country unnoticed. A Russian name is bound to be noticed."

"So to remain unnoticed by people who're not looking for you, you're gonna use a name that'll get noticed?"

"That's exactly right."

"Sounds plausible," he said, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. Clearly, there was more to being a spy than he'd ever suspected. Such deception. Suck trickery. Such a cool Russian surname. "But what if someone sees your name and thinks you're a Russian spy?"

"Obviously I can't be a Russian spy, because Russian spies are all called Svetlana or Tatiana, and usually have names ending in —ov. Besides, I'm travelling to the US with my family, and we're only going to be there for a week. We've already got flights back home bought and paid for."

"Well, if you can't be a Russian spy because you don't have the right name, and you can't be a British spy because you've got a name that no British spy would ever pick, what kind of spy can you be?"

"An eye."

"Eye-Spy?"

"You spy what?"

He looked around. "Something beginning with… L."

"Luggage."

"Damn it! Are you sure you're not reading my mind?"

"Ahem." The ticket-lady handed the passport back, completely oblivious to the conversation happening right in front of her. Her eyes had taken on a somewhat vacant, glassy look. "Very good, Mrs Borisova." She looked at Deadpool. "And your husband's passport?"

"He's already shown it to you. Here's our son's," said Talon, handing over a blank piece of paper.

"We have a son?" Deadpool hissed at her. "What's he called?"

"Does it matter?"

"Of course it matters! What if someone asks me what his name is, and I can't answer!"

"Make something up."

"But I'm not good at inventing people on the spot! I get all nervous and clenchy."

"Clenchy?"

"Yeah, you know, when you really gotta go but there's someone in the cubicle next door and you get anxious about perfor—"

"Forget I asked. Just go with Dmitri. It's a common enough name in Soviet countries."

"Ah, Dmitri. Lemme ask… am I a good Dad? Our son's not gonna grow up hating me because I didn't read him stupid bedtime stories about princesses and frogs whilst he was little, is he?"

Talon shrugged. "Why don't you ask him yourself?"

"I would, but the little sod's not talking to me. I think he's sulking 'cos I grounded him for torturing ants with a magnifying glass. He must get that streak of sadism from you; _I_ certainly never fried ants beneath a glass. Ants are people too, you know."

"Stop talking about ants!" Talon snapped, eyes blazing angrily. She took a bottle from her pocket, picked out a couple of tablets, and swallowed them. It didn't make her face less mad. "God, you just had to bring ants into it, didn't you? I may not be able to fry your mind, Deadpool, but mention ants to me once more and I'll make everyone around you believe you're invisible for the rest of your life."

"Really? You can do that? Because that would be so cool!"

Overhead, something exploded quietly, glass raining down from above. When it stopped, Deadpool looked up, and saw that one of the bulbs in the ceiling had shattered.

"Er, did you do that?" he asked Talon.

"Don't be stupid. I'm a telepath, and exploding lightbulbs isn't something they teach you in spy school."

"No need for name-calling. That's just mean."

"Oh dear," the ticket-lady said, when she noticed the glass on the floor. "It looks like a lightbulb has burst. I'll call the cleaning staff to deal with it. But first, here's your son's passport back, Mrs Borisova. How will you be paying for your tickets?"

"By card," said Talon, transferring her glare from Deadpool to ticket-lady. She took a plain white card from her purse and handed it over. Here, Deadpool expected things to finally go wrong, because the card didn't have any writing on it, or a signature strip; it was just a piece of white plastic. Talon might be able to fool the ticket-lady, but she wouldn't be able to fool the cash register.

Surprisingly, the register accepted the card. Talon signed the receipt, accepted the tickets from the ticket-lady, and walked off towards the check-in area before Deadpool even had time to form a question.

"So… magic credit card?" he guessed.

"Something like that." Talon stopped and leant against a wall for a moment, massaging her temples with her fingers.

"What's wrong?" he asked.

She opened her bloodshot eyes, and he realised she looked like hell. Had done since leaving London. Perhaps her silence in the car had been for a different reason than the one he'd initially suspected.

"Just a headache," she said. "You didn't want to carry my bag… did you?"

"No."

"Good."

"Good? I thought you _wanted_ me to carry your bag?"

"What? No. I want you to stay away from it. It's mine, and you're not going anywhere near it."

"Why, what inside it?"

"Feminine products."

"You've got secret MI6 weapons in there, don't you?"

"Of course not," she scoffed. "That's just silly."

He held out his hand. "Give me your bag. I don't trust you with it."

"No way. If you want a bag, get your own."

"Fine." He waited until she was unprepared and then snatched her bag from her shoulder, gleefully ignoring the scowl she aimed at him.

 **Well, let her scowl!** he thought with smug satisfaction. **It** **'s all she** _ **can**_ **do.**

"I believe the check-in area's over this way," she said, setting off through the airport once more.

Even the simple act of checking in caused problems. The bag went through the x-ray machine just fine. Talon walked through the metal detector without incident. Deadpool followed her and the whole thing started beeping maniacally.

"Excuse me, sir, but are you carrying anything metal?" one of the security guards asked. The fact that he referred to him as 'sir' told Deadpool that the guard was probably seeing the illusionary image of Mr Borisova, and not a man in a bright red feature-obscuring costume.

" _Carrying_? No, can't say that I'm _carrying_ anything metal. Um, little Jedi help?" he said to Talon.

She sighed, and the guard waved him through with, "Everything's fine, you can proceed."

"Do you ever get the urge to do cool and nefarious stuff with your Jedi mind-powers?" he asked, as he sneakily snatched her bag from the conveyor before she had chance to collect it.

"I used to, when I was younger," she admitted.

"What'd you do?"

She slowed her pace as they walked down the gate towards the airplane door, her eyes unfocusing as she recalled distant memories. It wasn't until he waved his hand in front of her face that she realised she hadn't answered, and glanced up at him warily through her green eyes.

"Well, there was this one girl in spy school who absolutely hated me. She was a complete b# $%. So, every night, when she fell asleep, I'd give her a hypnotic suggestion that she'd wake up in the morning without any hands." Talon chuckled. "Her screams used to wake the whole dorm up. ' _My hands, my hands are gone!_ _'_ etcetera etcetera."

"Heh. So what happened to her?"

"She never fully recovered after three months of waking up and seeing her hands only as stumps. She started to fear going to sleep. Tried staying awake too often. Completely ruined her concentration. She never passed the second-year tests. Of course, it probably didn't help that I went into her head the day before the main test and erased ninety percent of the information she'd learnt over the past two years."

 **Spy school sounds like so much fun. I wish I could go.**

"Did you do stuff which _didn_ _'t_ leave people with permanent emotional trauma?" he asked, curious about what childhood antics one could get up to in spy school.

"Oh, she wasn't permanently traumatised. You see, when she failed her exams, MI6 had no option but to send her to a foster home. But they couldn't send her away with two years of spy-training; too much of a security risk. So they had me erase her memory of everything before they let her go. As far as I'm aware, she now works for the post-office."

"Postal service employment. A fate worse than death," he quipped.

When they reached the end of the gate and arrived at the plane, a cabin-lady greeted them, and asked for their tickets.

"We have seats in business class," said Talon, handing the tickets over.

"Of course. Business class is right down the corridor and then to your left. A hostess will be along shortly to see to your requirements. Have a pleasant flight."

"I wish I had Jedi mind-powers," Deadpool sighed, as he hefted Talon's carryall down the aisle.

"No mind-powers were involved. We actually _do_ have seats in business class."

"I wish I had a magic secret agent credit card."

"Working for a well-financed secret government service does have its perks," she admitted.

"Yeah… right up until you sign your soul away on the dotted line." He tossed her bag into the overhead compartment and sank down in his designated seat. The first thing he did was recline the seat back and rest his feet on the back of the chair in front.

"I haven't signed my soul away," said Talon, lowering her slender body in the seat beside his.

"Riiight. Your government have your best interests at heart."

"They have the best interests of my _country_ at heart. They ask no more of me than they do of other operatives."

"They exploit your mutant powers."

"They make good use of a resource and pay me well for my service. Two weeks ago, a man died. A spy, working abroad. He slipped up, and got his throat cut. He wasn't a mutant. He was just a regular human being, doing his bit for his country. He knew the dangers. He knew what he signed up for. And because he was forewarned, he wasn't being exploited. Nobody _forced_ him to accept a job as a spy."

"You're just naïve."

A throaty laugh escaped Talon's lips.

"What's so funny?!"

"I've never been called 'naïve' before. In fact, just last week my handler accused me of being cynicism incarnate."

"Yeah, well, you're still wrong."

She didn't try to argue the point any further, merely closed her eyes and relaxed into the comfortable business-class seat. When he was sure she wasn't going to open her eyes and catch him in the act, he studied her more closely, trying to see if there were any differences between the Talon of now and the Talon from the time of his dream, however long ago that had been. But, apart from the disappearance of any lingering youthful plumpness, there seemed to be little change from the woman he semi-remembered from his dream. Her pale skin was still soft-looking and flawless, her hair was perhaps just a tad shorter, but still just as luxuriously wavy, and her black jeans and polo-neck sweater still hugged her figure closely, hinting at the curves which lay beneath whilst showing very little flesh.

He was struck by a sudden thought. Here was somebody from his past. A real, live person who had known him before the military experimented on him. And she'd known him well enough to be inside his head, and suggest a _very_ kinky champagne-bath together. Very possibly she knew him better than anybody else in the world. She could tell him who he'd been. If he had any family. Who is friends were. What kind of a life he'd lived. He could find out answers to all of his questions… and all he had to do was ask.

 **But what if I get the answers, and then don** **'t like them? What if Talon tells me I was a bad person who routinely kicked puppies or something? I worked for the military at one point. I must have done some pretty questionable things. Maybe I'm better off not knowing. Maybe this is a chance for me to start over. To be whoever I want to be, regardless of who and what I was. Maybe this is the one good thing to come out of everything the military put me through. I have a clean slate, and I'd be stupid to sully it with the tattered remains of my past.**

His mind made up, he settled once more into his chair. Ten minutes later the plane was in the air and the seatbelt sign went out. A rattling sounded heralded the arrival of the air hostess pushing the refreshment cart.

"Can I get you anything to drink, sir?" she asked as she stopped beside Deadpool's seat.

"That depends. Do you have mojito?"

"I'm afraid we don't serve cocktails."

"Well, you should. What else have you got?"

"The drinks available are whisky, run, brandy, tequila, vod—"

"Gimme the tequila."

She slid down the shelf from the back of the chair in front of him and placed a glass on it, added two ice cubes, and handed him a tiny little bottle. He glared at it in disdain, before remembering she couldn't _see him_ glaring at it in disdain.

"That's the tiniest bottle I've ever seen, and this is an eight hour flight."

"I'm sorry sir, but the airline policy is to allow one bottle per passenger per hour, to prevent passengers becoming intoxicated whilst in the air."

"What if I promise not to get intoxicated?"

"Company policy still stands."

"What if I write a strongly-worded letter?"

"I'm sorry, sir. You can only have one bottle."

" _Taaaalooon,"_ he whined, in his best childish tone of voice. "The refreshments-lady is being mean to me."

Talon merely glanced at the woman, and said, "I'll have a tequila too."

Deadpool watched as the woman handed over the goods and then left for the next row of passengers.

"Here," said Talon. She dumped the tiny bottle on his shelf. "Have mine too if it'll stop you complaining."

"You're giving me your booze?" He gave the bottle the once-over. Her generosity was rather suspicious.

"I don't drink alcohol."

"Why not?" He poured the second bottle into the glass, then cursed his own short-sightedness. To drink the tequila, he'd have to lift up his mask. There was _no way_ he was going to do that. The few people who'd seen his face when his bandages had inconveniently slipped had recoiled in fear and disgust. The revulsion in their eyes had taught him a valuable lesson; nobody wanted to see the face of a monster. To the normal people in society, the only good freaks were the ones in shows, paraded for entertainment, brought out so that people could feel better about their own lives. But Deadpool wasn't some carnival freak-show. People wouldn't be moved to throw money at him out of pity. They'd be moved to throw sharp objects at him to make him go away.

"Alcohol disrupts my mental control," said Talon, oblivious to his moment of internal self-loathing.

"And… that's bad?"

"Very bad."

"Why?"

"Because when people speak to themselves inside their heads, they don't realise it but they're projecting their thoughts. Unless I make a conscious effort to block out those thoughts, by erecting a barrier around my mind, I hear them. Constantly. Keeping that barrier up takes energy, and concentration. I can keep it up whilst performing tasks, but anything which lowers inhibition or affects mental processes makes it more difficult for me to keep people out."

"Do you ever let people in?" he asked, thinking of the champagne bath and wondering whether it had been real or an illusion. He'd thought it had just been a dream, but he suspected a lot of his dreams had a basis in reality.

Her eyebrows rose; he'd caught her off-guard with his question.

"Do you mean professionally, or personally?" He shrugged. "For professional purposes, I'm capable of forming a mental link between my mind and another, but I control the flow of thought to ensure I don't overwhelm the mind I'm linked to. As for personal activities… well, let's just say that it's rare to find a person who's comfortable with that level of contact. Even when people want physical intimacy, they prefer their thoughts to remain private. I respect those wishes."

"What about when you make people do what you want? You just put images in their heads?"

"Not quite. The mechanisms by which I control perception and behaviour have different sources."

"I never took Mutant Biology 101."

Talon sighed, and elaborated. "I can go into a mind and plant an image, or a sound, or any other type of sensory input, but I can't control how a person will _react_ to my mental illusions. Sometimes their reaction works in my favour, sometimes it doesn't. I can increase my chances of a favourable reaction beforehand by reading a mind and trying to determine how an individual reacts in a given situation, but it's not foolproof. For example, if I was to create an image of a fire in the cockpit, in the minds of everybody in this cabin, then some people would run away from it to escape the danger, whilst some would run towards it to try and put it out."

"And your whole Jedi mind-trick thing..?"

"A form of audio-hypnosis. By modulating my tone of voice, I can trigger small reactions within the appropriate area of the brain which directly impinge upon the complex reward/punishment mechanism responsible for decision processing, and—"

He held up his hand to stall her. "Too much info. Just tell me you can wave your hand and make people do your bidding."

"That's grossly understating the complexity of how—"

"Ah-ah. Hand. Jedi. Obedience."

With a shake of her head, she said, "Fine. I wave my hand and make people do my bidding."

"I knew it! Hey, look at that," he said, pointing out of the window beside her. "That cloud looks just like Tom Selleck!"

He waited until her head was turned and she was looking around for Tom Selleck, then hastily lifted the bottom half of his mask and downed the double shot of tequila before replacing the mask once more.

"I'm afraid I don't see it," said Talon, when her long moment of scrutiny failed to provide any evidence of Tom Selleck in the sky.

"Oh well, you weren't missing much. Just the largest moustache the world has ever seen. And probably will ever see again."

He set his seat to its maximum recline position and felt his whole body relax. The double-shot of tequila probably helped.

 **This is the life. Flying in business-class, drinking the alcohol, chilling in a comfortable seat. I must remain awake for the next eight hours to make the most of this!**

He closed his eyes and was asleep within minutes.

* * *

 _Deadpool_ _'s Note: Yes, I know, pedantic fanfic readers; Leningrad is St. Petersburg_ now _, but in 1980-whatever, when this story is set, it was still Leningrad. Don_ _'t ask me why Russians gotta go changing their place names all the time, it's probably a national hobby or something. In other news, The Author has asked me to inform you that "a small block" has been hit, partially as a result of the loss of comprehensive notes/plans, partially as a result of The Author's artistic muse being sent into rehab. While The Author tries to work past this block sans muse, the_ other _story The Author is currently working on (Running To You) will be the main focus for a while, because that particular fanfic isn_ _'t reliant on notes which got lost in The Great Crash. The Author hopes to find some inspiration while doing that, so hopefully we won't have to wait too long before finding out what happens to me when Talon and I land in America and I get my missing time back._

 _In the meantime, here is a small puzzle to keep you entertained:_ _"Why is a raven like a writing-desk?"_


	6. New York, New York

Legacy

 _6\. New York, New York  
(in which Talon reads somebody_ _'s mind)_

* * *

 **Location: Flight BA874-1  
Approaching JFK Airport  
11PM EST**

Deadpool opened his eyes and lifted a hand to wipe at the drool that had dribbled down under his mask whilst he'd been asleep. The cabin of the plane was in darkness, save for in a few places where suited men were reading newspapers and doing crosswords by the dim illumination of their overhead lights.

 **I wonder if any of these men are astronauts, tracking me down for the military. Hmm** **… nah, they can't have known I went to England. Not unless they were watching me stow-away. Maybe I should ask Talon to read their minds, just to be sure.**

He looked down at the diminutive spy. She was asleep, too, but she managed to look just as elegant asleep as she did awake. _She_ wasn't drooling from one corner of her mouth.

"Hey," he said, shaking her shoulder. "Wake up, English."

Her eyes flickered open, looking considerably less tired and bloodshot now that she'd slept for several hours. For a span of several seconds she seemed confused at being woken suddenly in a strange place, and her eyes roamed his mask and the rest of the cabin. Then she remembered where she was, and why she was there, and he practically _saw_ a barrier come up, her eyes changing from wide and disoriented to cold and calculating.

"Pleasant dreams?" he asked.

"I don't dream." She took a bottle of pills from her pocket, tipped two out and swallowed them.

"Wassat?"

"The reason I don't dream." She pocketed the bottle once more, and he knew that was all he was going to get from her. "Why did you wake me?"

"I need you to read the minds of the people on the plane, and tell me if any of them are astronauts," he whispered.

The look she gave him was particularly unimpressed. "Are you joking?"

"I kid you not."

"There are no astronauts on this plane. I can assure you."

"What about soldiers in disguise?"

"No."

"Spies for the government?"

"Only one."

He looked around, full of suspicion. "Where?!"

"Me," she sighed. "Look, Deadpool, there's no need for this constant paranoia."

"I'm not paranoid. Paranoid people just _think_ the government is out to get them. I _know_ the government is out to get me."

"Why? Because you know about their experiments on mutants?"

He didn't reply. If he told her _how_ he knew about the experiments, it would lead to more questions. Uncomfortable questions. And if she found out who he was beneath the mask, she'd want him to take it off. She wouldn't understand why he wore it. Someone like her, beautiful, flawless, would have nothing but pity for him.

"Sooner or later you're going to have to tell me everything you know," she continued. "If I don't know what's going on, I'm not going to be of much use to you."

" _Ladies and gentlemen, this is the captain,"_ said a voice over the intercom system.

 **Saved by the bell.**

" _In ten minutes we'll be arriving at JFK airport, so we request that you fasten your seat belts and turn off all electronic devices as we prepare for descent. It's a warm night in New York, with temperatures in the mid-eighties. The time is currently eleven o'clock eastern standard time, and we plan to disembark on schedule at eleven-thirty. On behalf of myself and the cabin crew, we'd like to thank you for flying British Airways."_

"Yes!" said Deadpool. "I got my time back!"

"I'm not even going to ask," Talon said, with a quiet sigh. He suspected she was going to bring up the subject of their mission again, but she merely fastened her belt and righted her chair in preparation for the landing.

Twenty minutes later the plane was on the ground and being taxied to a gate. Despite Talon's half-hearted reassurances, Deadpool watched the other passengers with dogged caution as they departed one by one. Finally, Talon grabbed her bag from the overhead storage and followed on the heels of one of the businessmen.

He'd thought that she would immediately start questioning him, demanding information so they could make a start on the investigation. Instead she simply left the gate in silence and, when they reached the arrivals lounge, scanned the faces in the crowd as if looking for someone familiar.

"Expecting a welcoming party?" he asked.

"I _always_ expect things to happen when I least expect them."

"You know, that sounds almost _paranoid_!"

A small grin pulled at the corners of her mouth. "Touché."

Seemingly content by what she saw, or didn't see, Talon led him through the airport, walking unerringly towards the Left Luggage desk. She produced her passport once more, and held it out for scrutiny.

"My name is Mrs Borisova, and I'd like to collect my luggage."

The man returned with a small bag and a request form. "Please sign to state you have collected your personal items."

When she had her bag, Talon walked a short distance away from the desk and then opened it. Deadpool craned his neck over her shoulder, but she didn't make any attempt to hide its contents. She took out a new passport, small white card, a wad of cash and a bunch of papers, and stuffed them in her carryall. Then she put _Jelena Borisova_ _'s_ passport and the white card she'd used to pay for the tickets in London into the small bag, and checked it back in with the guy on the desk. If he thought it odd she was checking in the same bag she'd just collected, he didn't comment.

Whilst Talon was busy signing new paperwork, Deadpool quietly unzipped her carryall and took out the passport, opening it up to examine it. Again, it showed a picture of Talon, but this time the name was _Marie-Joie Gillon_. It stated her place of birth as Lyons.

"You're French now? Doesn't that sorta go against your religious beliefs or something?"

She handed the form and the bag to the man behind the desk, then turned to face Deadpool.

"I wouldn't be very good at what I do if I let ego and a misplaced sense of nationalistic pride get in the way of my work." Snatching the passport and stashing it back in her bag, she gestured for him to follow her towards the exit.

"How did that stuff even get here? Before yesterday, you had no idea you'd be coming to the US. Right? And we got the first flight out. No way could even a first-class airmail have gotten here before us."

"Successful espionage isn't just a case of a handful of spies undertaking sneaky and clandestine missions," she explained. "A good intelligence network, like the one at MI6, comprises people from all walks of life. Some spies are put in place to be found; others to remain hidden. But most people in an intelligence network aren't spies at all. They just perform small tasks when it's requested of them, ensure events are set in motion, and handle the day to day logistics of the operation. Most of the time they don't even know _why_ they're doing something. In this case, my handler called ahead yesterday… earlier today… whatever… and arranged for alternate identity papers to be left here for me by one of the lower level operatives. He has no idea who I am; I could be a top-level operative, or an informant needing to leave the country, or another low-level operative tasked with carrying out orders."

"Huh. Okay. So, as cool as I am with you telling me all your department's secrets… uh… _why_ are you telling me all your department's secrets?"

She stopped and looked at him, green eyes examining his face as if trying to see through his mask. The stream of passengers parted around them like a river diverging around a rock.

"If you and I are going to work together, successfully, then that means you're going to see things. Ways in which I, and the organisation I work for, operate. I could try to hide these things from you, and refuse to answer your questions, but that will hardly foster a sense of trust between us. So, I'm trusting you with this information, just as _you_ will have to trust _me_ with whatever secrets you're carrying."

 **Her honesty** **… unexpected. Mrs Fortune Teller Lady's warnings were all about secrecy and deception, and so far she's been right about everything that she's told me. I** _ **want**_ **to trust Talon, I do, but what little trust I actually possessed was torn to shreds the night Caldwell murdered Connie. How can I trust anybody, after that?**

"I'm not good at that whole trust thing," he admitted.

"And normally, I don't _have_ to trust people," she said. "Being able to read minds and influence behaviour sort of negates any requirement for trust. So I guess this will be an awkward mission for both of us."

He mulled over her words as they left the airport and got into a taxi. Maybe she was right. Maybe the sooner they trusted each other, the better off they'd be. He tried to put himself in her shoes. What was it like, for her? What was it like being so used to reading minds and knowing instantly what people were thinking, only to have to trust somebody whose mind she, for some reason, couldn't read? Did she doubt his motives? Did she feel uncomfortable, even uncertain, because she couldn't influence his behaviour?

Looking at her, sitting at ease beside him as she peered out the window over the dark New York horizon, he doubted it. She seemed calm, relaxed, in control. Either she was the world's best actor, or very little phased her. But how different would that be if she knew what he was, what the military had made him? Would she still speak of trust if she knew they had turned him from a man into a weapon? Or would she try to ship him back to England so that their own scientists could study him, and try to create mutant weapons of their own?

 **This whole situation is ridiculous. I** **'m trusting her to help me on the word of some fraud psychic. I know nothing about this woman. The man she knew is gone. Dead. Not coming back. She has no reason to help me, other than her superiors wanting all the data Stryker and the others collected on their stupid Weapon programme. This was a bad idea. I should just ditch Talon the first chance I get and go it alone. Yes, that's what I'll do. I'm no good at teamwork anyway.**

A short time later the taxi pulled up outside a large building. Talon paid the man, and Deadpool continued talking himself into telling Talon he no longer needed her, despite the fact that he'd hit a brick wall and couldn't go any further alone. It was easier, not going any further alone, than it was going places with somebody who wanted to walk the two-way street of trust.

As the taxi departed, he opened his mouth. Then, he stopped. A series of bright lights caught his eyes through the thin film of his mask, and he realised the nearby buildings were towering over him, obscuring his view of the night sky. He'd been here before. Not since his escape from Three Mile Island, because being here would have drawn too much attention, but some time, in the past, he'd been here. He felt recognition in the pit of his stomach, the same sort of gut-wrenching sense of déjà vu he'd had when Talon had walked into the bank.

"Why are we in Times Square?" he asked, turning on the spot, drinking in the light of the the neon signs which banished the darkness of the night.

She arched one dark eyebrow, which he now recognised as a sign of amusement. "Surely you don't expect me to stay in some third-rate budget motel?" And with that as her only explanation, she stepped through the front door of the Casablanca Hotel.

 **Well** **… maybe I'll tell her she's not needed after a night of luxury. This place looks a step up from my condemned building. I'll bet those heroin addicts are squatting there already. Damn squatters.**

He followed her into the building and was met by the sight of extensive oak panelling adorning the walls. The seats left out for guests to relax on whilst waiting to check-in looked old, and expensive, and he suspected the bell which sat atop the solid oak check-in desk was probably made of silver.

 **Note to self: steal that bell when I leave.**

"It's not perfect," Talon said, giving the bell a quick ring and waiting for the concierge. "Not a patch on some of the hotels in Abu Dhabi. But it's alright, for an American attempt at class. I just wish the rooms were a little more spacious."

Deadpool said nothing as the concierge appeared with an ingratiating smile on his face. The man didn't remark on having a costumed individual lounging across two expensive but uncomfortable chairs, which meant Talon was probably making him see something else. A useful power to have. Very useful.

Talon requested two large rooms with double-beds, all the bells and whistles, and checked them in under her new identity, and using the new plain white card she'd received from Left Luggage. It just wasn't fair; he'd obviously been working for the wrong country's government. Scientific torture vs. Luxury hotels. There was no justice in the world.

A bellhop appeared to escort the hotel's newest guests to their rooms. He left Talon with both keys when she generously tipped him, and she handed one of the keys to Deadpool.

"I suggest we get a good night's sleep," she said. "We'll have an early start. They serve breakfast from six, and most shops will be open at eight."

"Shops?"

"Yes. I'm travelling with the bare minimum. I need more clothes. And you need something to wear other than that ridiculous costume."

"Hey!" he scowled. "I like my costume."

"Regardless, it draws too much attention."

"Alright, let me rephrase; I like my costume and I'm not taking it off."

"Do you have any idea how tiring it is to maintain the illusion that you're not really there? Or that you're just a normal man wearing normal-man clothes?"

"Well, I didn't ask you to do that. I don't care if I draw attention. What are they gonna to do, kick me outta the hotel? When you're paying them? I don't think so."

"Fine. Be awkward, if you like. Now, I need to sleep. I'll see you tomorrow for breakfast."

"Okay. Breakfast it is. But I'm not going shopping with you."

She didn't bother responding. Likely she thought she'd get her own way, but if so, she was going to be bitterly disappointed.

Inside the bedroom, which was as sumptuous as he'd been expecting, he locked the door. Then he put a chair behind it, preventing the handle from being turned. Then he closed the blinds across the windows and made sure none of the lamps would outline his silhouette to anybody standing on the street below. Just for good measure he took one of the small mints from atop his pillow and stuck it in the keyhole of the door, so that nobody could see through. Then, and only then, did he peel off the costume, removing first the gloves, then his boots, followed by his belt and his shirt and his pants, and finally the mask.

The bathroom called to him in an alluring siren song, because when you were effectively homeless, indoor plumbing and hot water were rare and elusive things. The closest most drifters came to washing was standing outdoors during a summer downpour, and Wade knew his personal hygiene levels had fallen since being forced to squat in condemned buildings.

He looked at his reflection in the mirror. Sometimes he'd wake up dreaming of being cured, or of his body healing itself from the cancer. He was always disappointed, when he looked at his skin after those dreams, and today was no exception. There was no sign of his body fighting off the cancer. The constant pain of his internal organs being riddled with tumours had settled into something more akin to a dull and pervasive ache; an indication that his body was starting to accept the disease, and adjust its pain threshold accordingly.

 **Stupid traitor body.**

 _Ugly, unwanted freak,_ the reflection of his body shot back at him. _Why don_ _'t you tell Talon the_ other _reason why you wear the costume? Why don_ _'t you tell her how the military tried to get you back? How they failed? How ever since then you've been trying to find them, trying to get their attention… but achieved nothing. Even the military has given up on you. They've seen how damaged you are, and they don't want you back. The only thing they'd do to you if they got their hands on you would be to cut you up and find out what went wrong. Can't have your weaponised mutants turning into cancer-ridden freaks, can you?_

"Shut up and leave me alone."

He turned away from the mirror, turning his back on himself. There was nothing worth seeing, in that reflective glass. Nobody worth talking to. Just an echo of the man he had been, mocking him from his lofty perch in the hidden depths of his own past.

o - o - o - o - o

Talon yawned, stretching her arms above her head as she walked the short distance down the corridor to Deadpool's door. There, she knocked, and waited. After six hours of sleep, following the seven hours on the plane, she finally felt rested. Not refreshed—never that—but recharged enough to face another day of mental toil and potentially mind-shattering migraines.

The door swung open a couple of inches, Deadpool's red masked face appearing in the space.

"Are you ready for breakfast?" she asked.

"I already ate. I woke up starving early in the morning so I ordered room-service. Added the charge to your bill. I'm sure your government won't mind."

"I see. Well, are you still opposed to shopping?"

"I'd rather be shot in the head. Repeatedly. By somebody with bad aim. When can we get to the important mission stuff?"

"This afternoon. Do you want to meet somewhere for lunch, so that we can go over any information you've collected so far?"

He shook his head. "I have room-service. We can go over the details en route to our mission objective, or whatever the hell you want to call it."

"As you wish."

"Enjoy contributing towards a capitalist society, English," he said, and closed the door.

Well. That could have gone better. It seemed Wade Wilson was not only paranoid, but reclusive. What on earth had happened to him? Whatever it was, it probably had something to do with his old team. The American government had been playing at creating super-soldiers for decades, so it stood to reason that their attempt to harness mutant power was the next logical step. After all, why go to all the trouble of creating brand new soldiers, when you could simply train up existing ones? Still, there was only one way to find out.

She went down to the breakfast hall and ate a couple of croissants, washing them down with orange juice. As she left the hotel she made a quick mental scan, just in case somebody was watching the place, but detected nothing out of the ordinary. When she set off walking, it was with no particular direction in mind.

The first pay-phone she came across was just off Times Square. She pulled a few coins from her pocket and slid them into the slot, then slipped a pair of gloves on and dialled the MI6 office in London. It was already lunch time, in England. Hopefully Jimmy would be true to his habits, and be eating his sandwich at his desk.

" _Earnshaw,"_ Jimmy answered, when the line picked up.

"It's me," she replied.

" _Good to hear your voice. How's the weather?"_

"The weather's fine. Sunny, only an occasional storm cloud," she said, following the department's procedures for generic reporting on a mission. _Never mention your name. Never mention the name of the person you_ _'re talking to. Make your conversation as brief as possible. Never say when you'll be in contact again. Never give away any hint of your location. Never give forwarding contact details. Never say anything to incriminate yourself. You never know who's listening. Conversations are only as private as you make them._

" _What do you need?"_ he asked.

"Stryker. That's sierra, tango, romeo, yankee, kilo, echo, romeo. US Army major. Anything and everything you can get."

" _I'll see what I can do."_

"Bye."

She hung up and took a packet of sterilising wipes from her pocket. She used one to wipe down the receiver and handset and even gave the buttons a once-over, before leaving the booth and removing her gloves.

 _You never know who_ _'s listening. And you never know who's watching._

Several streets away, she found another pay-phone. She put more coins in the slot. Put on her gloves. Dialled another number, this one with an Edinburgh dialling code. When the line picked up, it clicked a few times as the scrambling hardware kicked in, and then a rough Scottish voice answered.

" _Hello?"_

"It's me," she said.

A moment of silence. Then, _"What're ya doin' in America?"_

"Sightseeing. I need you to find some info for me."

" _Info's my middle name, sweetheart. What is it yer needin' now?"_

"As much as you can find me on a former US soldier named Wade Wilson. He was in something called Team X. Check as well for Project X, or anything similar. You're probably going to have to dig deep on this one. And for God's sake, be careful."

" _Careful's my second middle name. What d'ya want me t' do with yer info, once ah have it?"_

"There's an old SIS satellite up in orbit. Defunct now, but it's still capable of receiving data."

" _Sloppy of the SIS, to leave it up there."_

She smiled. "It must have slipped their minds. But it shouldn't take you long to hack into it. Upload the data there, and I'll retrieve it when I get the chance."

" _Anythin' else?"_

"That's all."

" _Pleasure bein' blackmailed by ya, as always."_

The line went dead and Talon hung up, then gave this phone the same cleansing treatment she'd given the first.

Finished with her intel-gathering, she headed off to the nearby shops, because high-level operatives were given unrestricted funds to ensure the success of their missions, and nobody could fault a girl for spending what was owed to her.

o - o - o - o - o

 **Location: Williamsbridge Road  
The Bronx, New York City  
14:00 HRS**

"Tell me about this man we're going to see," Talon asked, as she followed Deadpool down the street.

"He's some sorta go-to guy for quasi-criminal types," said Deadpool. "Works as an information seller, arms dealer and tinkerer of technology."

"What makes you think he has information on this government conspiracy?"

"I tracked one of the military's lackeys here."

"And let him get away?"

"No. He was gone before I got here."

"What would somebody who works for the military want with some back-street information broker?"

"I dunno. I questioned the guy, but he didn't give me any answers. Which is strange, 'cos I was _very_ persuasive. He just kept complaining that he had headache whenever I asked him pertinent questions. So that's where you come in. You need to Jedi the guy into giving up the info we need to find the man I tracked here."

"Alright. What's his name?"

"Pfft, name? How would I know his name? I just questioned the guy, it's not like I took him out for dinner and a movie after I broke his fingers."

"You broke his fingers?"

"Only three of them," said Deadpool, affecting a hurt tone. "And not even on his writing hand!"

As they walked down the street, Talon began to re-evaluate her own sanity. Clearly only a crazy person would be here, walking down a street in New York when she was wanted by SHIELD for questioning about a murder, aiding a man whose grip on reality had been tenuous at best even before whatever changes he'd undergone to give him the power to block out telepaths. Only a crazy person would have recommended this course of action to the Chief, and then happily volunteered to go along with the plans of a madman.

"This is it," said Deadpool, stopping outside a heavy ram-proof door with a slot for vision covered by a metal grille. "Uh… do you want to get us inside?"

Talon stepped up, knocked on the door, then stood on her tiptoes so that she was more visible through the slot. When it opened, a pair of beady, bespectacled blue eyes peered down at her, widened in surprise, narrowed in suspicion, then finally settled on something more akin to neutrality. She barely even needed telepathy to detect the proprietor's unease.

"What do you want?" he asked, voice little more than a muffled mumble through the thick door.

"My name's Talon," she said. "I'd like to talk to you."

"About?"

"Somebody you may have seen recently."

"I haven't seen anybody."

"I can pay you handsomely for any information you can provide."

"I've seen a lot of people. I'm sure I can give you whatever information you need."

"Can I come in, so that we can speak face to face?"

The eyes narrowed again, but he said, "OK. Stand back and I'll open the door."

Talon moved as instructed, and there commenced the sound of several deadlocks clicking open, of bolts being scraped back and chains being released.

"Not even beer?" Deadpool asked suddenly, as the cacophony of latches continued.

"What? What are you talking about?"

"You said you don't drink alcohol. Not even beer?"

"Beer is alcohol. So no, I don't drink it."

The door opened to reveal a tall, lanky young man wearing a t-shirt which said _Dungeon Master_ beneath a blue plaid shirt. His blue jeans were a couple of inches too long for him, and faded almost to transparency around the knees. Everything from the neck upwards was a mass of short, dark, unruly hair, glasses, over-large nose, and a lower face that hadn't seen a razor in at least a week. A typical case, Talon suspected, of high intellect battling social ineptitude, topped off by an unhealthy obsession for inventing new and potentially dangerous items.

The _Dungeon Maste_ r t-shirt was a dead giveaway.

"Come in," the man said.

"Don't mind if I do!" chirped Deadpool, stepping around the corner and pushing his way into the building.

The proprietor gasped and leapt backwards, arm coming up, finger pointing in accusation. "You! You're not welcome here!" He reached into an alcove and pulled out a sawn-off shotgun. "Leave, or I'll shoot you. I swear, I will!"

"No you won't," Talon said. She didn't technically need a distraction in order to read somebody's mind, but it was always more useful to have one. Deadpool's entrance had provided the perfect opportunity for Talon to slip a tendril of consciousness into the strangers mind and skim the surface of his thoughts. "Despite your many questionable activities and connections, you are not a killer." She focused her attention, pitching her voice _just so_ as she held out her hand. "Give me the gun, and we can discuss this like civilised people."

His eyes became a little more unfocused, taking on a somewhat glazed look, as always happened when Talon achieved some degree of audio-hypnotic control. He relinquished his hold on the gun, allowing Talon to take it. She immediately removed the cartridges, pocketing them before handing the weapon back. With the situation in hand, she looked around at the cardboard boxes stacked around the room, wires and bits of electronic things overflowing from them. Behind a counter were a dozen different objects which looked like telephone auto-diallers but probably weren't. A heavily locked door led off to the back room, where she now knew his stash of weapons and ammo were kept. A calendar on the wall showed a bikini-clad girl draped over a Harley Davidson. The text at the top said _Miss May 1981_ ; it was three years out of date.

"Why don't you have a seat," she said, indicating the stool behind the counter. He obeyed instantly, because he _wanted_ to be as far as possible from the man who'd broken his fingers. The counter was a convenient barrier. "Now, what is your name?"

"Jack Hammer," he replied. Deadpool sniggered. "But everyone calls me Weasel."

"Very well, Weasel. My friend here has some questions for you. I'd like you to answer them truthfully. Then we'll be on our way. Do you understand?"

Eyes still glazed, he nodded.

"How did you recognise me?" Deadpool asked first. "Last time I was here, I didn't have this costume."

"I recognised your voice," Weasel said. "You broke my fingers! I've only just had the tape taken off!"

"That again. Is everybody going to hold that against me forever?"

Talon could sense that Weasel was becoming agitated, fighting her mental grip, so she pitched her voice to be soothing. "It's okay. You don't need to worry. He's not going to hurt you again. Just answer the questions and you'll never see us again. Go ahead, Deadpool."

He stepped up to the counter, and Weasel shrank back as far as the mental command to be seated would allow him.

"Where is Caldwell?"

"I don't know who that is!" wailed Weasel.

"He came here just over three months ago," said Deadpool. "He's not hard to recognise. Tall, broad-shouldered, blondish-brown hair, chiselled face, good looking. He would have been upset, when he came here. Possibly covered in blood."

"I haven't seen anybody like that."

"Liar!"Deadpool pulled a gun from his pocket, pointed it at the terrified Weasel's head. Talon's mental control of him snapped like an elastic band pulled too far, stinging her mind as Weasel ducked behind the counter and cowered in fear for his life. "I know he was here! I _know_ you talked to him! His car was seen outside your shop! He was seen leaving the building and driving away in his stupid convertible. If you lie to me, I will shoot you."

"Please, I have no idea what you're talking about! I wasn't even _here_ three months ago! I was in Chicago, at Comicon!"

"Deadpool, stop," said Talon. She placed a hand on his arm, but didn't bother wasting her effort in trying to lower it; judging by how taut his muscles were beneath his red costume, nothing short of a rampaging elephant could have moved him. Of course, elephants lacked finesse. "You're terrifying him," she said. "I need him to be calm, so that I can stay in control."

"You don't understand," he said, his voice choked with emotion. "I know he was here. I have eye-witnesses who _saw_ him talking to Caldwell, less than an hour after… after… I know he was here!"

"Maybe so. But _he_ thinks he wasn't here. Let me get to the bottom of this, and let me do it my way. Isn't this why you brought me along?"

"I suppose," he said, but it was little more than a half-hearted grumble. "Fine." He put the gun away, concealing it somewhere she couldn't see and didn't want to know. "Do it your way."

She turned, dismissing Deadpool from her thoughts as she re-focussed on Weasel. He was peering over the counter, eyes wide, shocked and afraid by the tone and content of the conversation.

"Weasel," she said, and tried to put a little of _Miss May 1981_ into her voice. "Sit down." He obeyed, and Talon sent threads of her own consciousness into his mind, weaving her way down into his memories. After a short time she hit a wall, a sort of mental barrier which had been erected around a certain memory set. Sending spidery threads of thought across it did nothing; it did not even ripple or give way to her delicate probing.

She had encountered such a wall once before, in the mind of a man who, whilst driving under the influence, had hit a car and killed the occupants. He'd been so leathered at the time that he hadn't even realised the occupants of the car were his own wife and two children on their way back from a night at the movies. His mind, so overwhelmed the next day by the realisation of what he'd done, had completely shut down, sealing off all memories of his family and the accident and reducing the man to a barely-functioning state in which he existed in a fantasy world in his own mind, kept lucid for brief intervals only by the administration of powerful anti-psychotics.

This barrier around Weasel's mind was like a less powerful yet more rigid version of the madman's self-induced state of denial. But there was something else she sensed about the barrier… a feeling of something _more_.

"I'd like you to think back to the Comicon," she said. "What did you do whilst you were there?"

Images tumbled through her mind, a medley of noise and light. Walking amongst stalls, eyeing up merchandise he could never afford, listening to guest speakers give lectures, waiting in line for autographs… it all seemed very normal. Until she noticed something strange; he wore several different pairs of shoes. Here a pair of sneakers, a few memories later a pair of boots, a short time after that a pair of sandals… and when she focused on his clothing, she noticed it shifting with each passing memory. One moment he was wearing shorts with his sandals, the next moment it was jeans. Once he was wearing a suit, but then the memory went straight back to jeans again.

"How many times have you been to Comicon?" she asked.

"Every year since it started," he replied, oddly proud of that nerdy fact.

"Why are we wasting time talking about some lame convention?" Deadpool asked.

"Because," said Talon, "Weasel's memory of his time there is… fractured. As if it's been pieced together from _other_ memories. The memories… they form a sort of protective barrier around something I can't access. Something that the memories are hiding."

"What _are_ you?" Weasel asked tremulously.

"One of the good guys," she replied. "Now, Weasel, I'm going to read your thoughts whilst hypnotically taking you back to the events of three months ago."

"You can't do that! That's a violation of my mind, and my rights as a citizen of the United States of—"

"I will pay you one thousand dollars."

"I'm perfectly happy for you to read my mind. It's not like I have anything to hide. Unless… um, you're not from the IRS, are you?"

"Do I sound like I'm from the IRS?"

"You make a very good point." He bit one of his fingernails like a hamster nibbling on a treat. "So, what do you want me to do?"

"Nothing. Simply relax and try to let your mind be open. This won't hurt. Oh, and stop biting your fingernails. It's a nasty habit."

He ceased nibbling immediately and Talon closed her mind, allowing more of herself to seep free from her body and enter Weasel's thoughts. She immediately sought out the wall, and leant her mental strength against it. As she felt it buckle and bend beneath her, there was a sharp backlash of pain.

"Argh!" Weasel cried. "I thought you said this wouldn't hurt!"

"Sorry," she replied, maintaining her focus. "I thought the barrier around your memories might be weak enough to break through. I can't do it without hurting you… but perhaps I can talk you through the process, and you can unlock a door from the inside of that barrier."

"Yeah, I like that idea better," he said.

"Very well. I want you to picture yourself in your mind." She saw the image unfold, Weasel as he was now, at Comicon several months ago. "I want you to focus on something," she instructed. "Pick something and really concentrate." He chose an autographed Spider Man poster which was up for auction, focused on the figure, on the signature, the price tag.

"Good. Now, what year is it?"

"It's… argh! It's… 1979!"

A lash of pain swept across their linked minds, but Talon braced herself and weathered the mental storm. Before Weasel could be overwhelmed by the pain, and coerced out of the bond, she ploughed on.

"Did you go to Chicago Comicon this year?"

"I… I think… I must have done! I go every year!" he said. Tears streamed down his face as conflicting memories tried to surface, battering painfully against the barrier.

"But you didn't go this year, did you?" The memories rose and bubbled, crashing into the inside of the barrier, releasing wave after wave of excruciating pain. Before Weasel could pass out from the mental battering of his own repressed memories, Talon located the area of his brain where the pain receptors reported to, then psychically switched them off. "What did you do instead?" she asked.

"Please stop," he said. Talon opened her eyes, but did not stop. Weasel was wilting on his stool, propped up only by Deadpool, who had him pinned against the counter to stop him falling to the floor.

"I'll stop soon," she promised. "There's just one more thing you need to do. You need to think about what happened the night a man called Caldwell came to you."

The memories beneath the barrier rose and fell like a ship tossed around during a turbulent storm. The barrier began to weaken, trembling beneath the pressure of the memories rising from below. As soon as she felt it threaten to crumble, she pushed all of her mental weight against it, forcing herself through, and went tumbling into Weasel's memories.

 _It was a cool night. He_ _'d just switched everything off and was preparing to go home when somebody banged loudly on the door, again and again and again. Weasel went to the view hole and saw a man standing outside, clothes bloodied, hair dishevelled, eyes red with the salt of tears shed._

" _What do you want?" he demanded, his customary greeting to his non-regular customers._

" _I need your help," the man said in a choking voice. Jeez, the guy was sobbing! What the hell had happened to him? "I was told you could get me a gun."_

" _Depends what you need it for," Weasel replied. "If you're gonna kill someone, you'll need to go elsewhere."_

" _It's for self defence. Please, I need to be able to defend myself."_

 _Weasel looked the man up and down as much as he was able through the slot._ _"Defend yourself against what?"_

" _Look, I don't have time for this. If you can't get me a gun, just tell me now so I can get the hell out of here."_

 _It was late, and Weasel was tired, and not particularly in the mood for dealing with blood-soaked individuals, but it had been a slow month, and business was business. He decided against asking what the guy had done to warrant armed self defence; it was probably better that he didn_ _'t know._

 _One by one he unfastened the chains, pulled back the bolts and unlocked the locks. When he opened the door, the bloodied man slipped inside with haste._

" _What kinda gun do you want?" Weasel asked, leading the man into the main shop and switching on the dim lights._

" _I… don't know. I've never done this before."_

 _A sigh escaped his lips. Trust him to get a newbie five minutes before closing. He had the worst luck in the world._

" _Well, you got your handguns, which are pistols or revolvers. You can go semi-automatic. Then your larger weapons include shotguns and rifles, but it depends on how much damage you want to cause. A shotgun's smaller but less precise; it'll leave someone in a mess at close range, but at a distance it's about as useful as hurling rocks. Your rifles are better if you don't wanna get up close and personal, but the automatics are gonna leave you with a lot of collateral, and with a sniper you need good aim but it's a trade-off between lethality and slow reload interval."_

" _Just give me something I can conceal and shoot easily."_

" _Handgun it is. Wait here."_

 _Weasel left the guy shifting nervously from foot to foot. In the back room, where all of his weapons were kept, he walked down the row of wall-mounted handguns, mentally running through a checklist of their pros and cons. Then he realised he was investing too much thought into selling a gun to someone who was probably going to shoot himself with it anyway. He grabbed the nearest Colt revolver, an old Python with a 4-inch barrel that he hadn_ _'t been able to shift to people who knew what they were doing, and a small box of ammo. Back in the shop, he laid the weapon out on the counter, and the bloodied man looked at it as if it was a real python._

" _Do you know how to use a revolver?" Weasel asked._

" _I've never handled a gun before in my life."_

 _So Weasel showed the guy how to unlock the cylinder. How to load the bullets into the chamber. The different ways of cocking the hammer. How to hold the weapon with the shooting hand, cradling it with the supporting hand. How to sight. How to gently squeeze the trigger to prevent the gun from moving at the last moment._

" _Got all that?" he asked. "I'm not gonna need to write it down for you, am I?"_

" _No, no, that's fine," the man said. "How much is this costing me?"_

" _Hard to put a price on your life," Weasel grinned. "But let's call it fifty even for the gun, and I'll give you your first two rounds of ammo for free. You need more, you come back and pay like my regulars."_

" _Yes, yes, fine." The bloodied man drew a bunch of notes from his pocket, and counted out fifty. Weasel accepted the cash, trying to ignore the bloody fingerprints left behind._

 _He showed the man out. Heard the car pull away. The night became as silent as nights were allowed to become in New York. Weasel locked up, and went back to his house. The memory faded._

Talon felt the bead of sweat trickle slowly down her forehead, and as soon as she released Weasel's mind she felt a wave of exhaustion wash over her. Breaking through the barrier and holding his memories together had been one of the most challenging things she'd ever done, but she knew that her task was only half complete. Judging by Weasel's pained and sweaty expression, she decided they could both use a quick break before she started again.

"What… what just happened?" Weasel asked. "That man. Who was he?"

"That's a very good question." She turned her gaze on Deadpool, who was still holding Weasel upright and not looking very pleased about doing it. "Who is Caldwell? You said he worked for the military, but he was scared witless, and he had no combat experience at all."

"He _does_ work for the military," Deadpool assured her. "Or he's in cahoots with them. Whatever. I just know that if we find Caldwell, we'll find the evidence we need to blow this whole thing wide open."

"But I don't _remember_ ever seeing that man before!" Weasel said, quailing at a masked glare from Deadpool. "I don't know anything else about him. I swear."

"Weasel," said Talon, leaning against the counter, allowing it to take her weight so she didn't have to expend precious energy on keeping herself upright. "You repressed the memory of what happened with Caldwell so deeply and so thoroughly that it was very difficult to bring it back."

"But why did I do that? It's not as if anything horrific happened that night. I sold a guy a gun. Hardly an event out of the ordinary."

"I don't think you repressed it at all. Something was done to you. Your memory was suppressed, hidden behind a barrier of false memories tied into the pain receptors in your brain. That's why you got headaches when Deadpool here tried to force you to remember. With your memories so effectively hidden, you didn't even realise you were lying. To you, it was the truth, and you lived it."

"Somebody tampered with my memories?"

"Yes. And I'd like to see if we can discover who, and why."

He gave her a now-familiar suspicious stare. "Is this going to be painful?"

"I've turned your pain receptors off."

"Yeah… that's not exactly comforting. I'm sure I could withstand a lot of pain if I was doped up on morphine, but that wouldn't mean it's not harming my body, just that I can't _feel_ it harming my body."

"I promise I won't harm you." _Permanently_ , she added, to herself. "It will be easier if you consent and actively assist me in the investigation."

"So basically you're going to do it even if I don't agree?"

"That's correct."

"Then it seems I have little choice," he sighed. "Just go ahead and do it. And try to get it over with quickly."

Talon closed her eyes once more and let a psychic thread wind from her mind into his. This time she was prepared for the barrier. Her consciousness slid across its slick surface, searching for a weakness. When she found one, a tiny flaw in the barrier as small as an inclusion in a precious gem, she focused her mental strength on it, slowly boring her way through. She sensed Weasel start to physically squirm as he felt her attempt to drill through his mind, so she distracted him with questions.

"Do you recall anything out of the ordinary, over the past few weeks? Any missing time, or black-outs?"

"Only my missed convention. I can't believe I missed it!"

"Have there been strangers hanging around? Have you seen anything out of the ordinary?"

"Well, there's been more tramps hanging around than normal. Not sure why. It's not like I encourage them by feeding them, you know. They say you shouldn't feed them."

"Look at this," she said, sending him the mental image of one of Salvador Dali's paintings. Whilst Weasel was busy looking at the surreal melted clocks, Talon focused the point of her thoughts boring through the wall of the barrier and punched through.

The backlash of pain was even more intense this time, and even partially disassociated from her body she heard Weasel wretch as knife-like stabs of agony afflicted his mind. Talon pushed down her own nausea as she descended into the layers of memory. When she found the one she was looking for she grabbed hold of it and wrestled it to the surface of his mind, allowing it to unfold.

 _It was night. One day after he_ _'d sold the Colt to the bloodied man. An evening just like any other. Until_ _ **he**_ _knocked on the door._

 _He was clad in the strangest attire; a dark blue jumpsuit that made him look like an acrobat in the world_ _'s most flamboyant circus. When Weasel looked out at the man from the wire-caged flap, he very nearly laughed out loud. Then he saw the men in the background. The uniforms they wore were much more sinister; uniforms of the US army. The men carried weapons, powerful rifles, as if they expected to go to war right here in the streets of New York._

" _Can I help you?" Weasel asked, because he had the distinct impression that his usual greeting for unusual customers would not be taken well in this case._

" _Open the door," the acrobat said. "And don't go getting any funny ideas. My friends here are just itching to shoot somebody. They don't particularly care who."_

" _Um, of course. Whatever you say."_

 _Bolts, chains, locks, all were disarmed with unusual haste. When Weasel opened the door, the acrobat and his bodyguards stepped forward, forcing him back into his shop._

" _Look," Weasel said, heart palpitating, sweat beading, hands going clammy and mouth going dry, "if this is about those incorrectly submitted tax returns—"_

" _I have no interest in the petty day-to-day runnings of your insignificant business," the acrobat interrupted. His eyes… his eyes were horrible. Pale blue. Cold. Lifeless as a dying fish's. Like someone had sucked out all the warmth and humanity leaving an empty shell. Weasel shivered._

" _So, um, what can I do for you boys?"_

 _The acrobat turned to him, pinning him in place with those horrible eyes._

" _Last night, a man came to you. You sold him a gun. He paid you in cash."_

" _Sure, I remember."_

" _Give me the cash."_

" _Um… you're robbing me?"_

" _No. I'm protecting you. Protecting you from your own ignorance. The cash?"_

 _Weasel did not like the tone of voice, and he didn_ _'t feel particularly protected. But fifty dollars was not worth getting shot over, so he retrieved the bloodied money he'd stashed in a tin behind the counter and handed it over."_

" _Good." The man smiled, but it was an empty thing, as if he was just going through the motion and didn't really know what a smile was. "Now, there's one more thing you can do for me."_

" _And what's that?"_

" _Forget."_

" _Forget? Sure. You got it. Consider it forgotten."_

" _If only it were that easy."_

 _Without warning, the man reached out, grasping Weasel_ _'s head with his hand. Before Weasel could object, he felt something inside his head… a presence, alien and cold as ice. He felt the presence plunge into his memories, felt it rifle around, and all he could do was stand there and let it happen._

 _He felt something fracture inside his mind, and the past twenty-four hours faded, replaced by images from his past. A voice, grating and sinister, said,_ _"You were never even here. That's what you'll tell anyone who asks. You were away at your stupid little hero-worship convention. If you try to remember, this little web will scramble your brains so bad that you'll spend the rest of your life gibbering in an asylum. When I leave, you won't remember any of this."_

 _There was a deep blackness. Weasel opened his eyes, realised he was lying on the floor of his shop. Something warm trickled down from his nose, and when he rubbed the back of his hand there it came away bloody. His head was pounding, felt like someone was holding a rock concert in his noggin. What had happened?_

 _The Comicon_ _… yes, he'd just got back. Had a few too many drinks on the way home. Must have fallen and banged his head. Probably caught his nose on the way down. Man, did he need sleep. Yeah, a few hours in bed to sleep off the hang-over from hell, and he'd be back to his old self._

 _Without another thought, he grabbed a rag to staunch his bleeding nose, then locked up and went home, promising himself that he_ _'d never drink that much again._

Talon opened her eyes, squinting against the shop's dim illumination. Her brain complained loudly, her body demanded rest, but she ignored them both as she glanced over Weasel. He, too, looked like he'd run a marathon. His pale, sweaty face, and eyes circled by dark rings, were probably a mirror of her own.

"Oh my God," he croaked, voice raw. "I remember. What that man did to me. I remember it all. His fingers in my head, the sound of his voice, the feeling of terrible, terrible malevolence… what could do that to a man?"

Talon did not reply. How could you explain to a non-telepath, even one as jaded as Weasel, that not all people were inherently good? How could you describe the overwhelming greed and jealousy and anger that could live inside the mind of even the most mild-mannered of men? Talon was used to it, had become desensitised to the capacity of humans for cruelty, because to let it continue surprise her would have driven her insane long ago. Weasel had seen just one small slice of humanity's dark pie; he didn't understand that every person in the world was capable of harbouring that cruel spark.

"You guys have gone awful quiet," Deadpool called. He appeared from the room where all the weapons were kept, armed with a rifle. "Tell me the truth. Does this weapon make me look fat?"

"What are you doing in there?" she asked, and then regretted it. This wasn't the time to be thinking about Deadpool; Weasel looked like someone had just murdered his whole family and then run over his puppy just to rub salt in his wounds.

"While you were working your mental mojo, Captain Weapons McGreedy here started blubbing like a little girl. Frankly, it was embarrassing. I had to handle some guns to rid myself of the girlishness and re-man myself. What'd you find, anyway?"

"You were right."

"Woo, vindication!"

"The night after Caldwell left, somebody else came. A man in a blue outfit, and two soldiers with him. The man… he was a telepath. I'd like to say 'like me', but that man was _nothing_ like me. He hid Weasel's memories of Caldwell behind a wall of other memories, and set up a mental booby-trap in case Weasel ever felt the urge to probe his own memories of the…" She trailed off as Deadpool started sniggering, and sighed. "Which word are you laughing at?"

"Probe," he said. "I can't help it, it's a funny word!"

"Have you finished?"

"Yes. Please continue."

"The man who changed Weasel's memories made it so that he couldn't remember what happened, hence why he couldn't tell you the truth about Caldwell. And he did it in such a way that if Weasel ever successfully started to remember, the trap he'd set would randomly psychically destroy parts of his mind."

Deadpool sidled up to Weasel and rubbed his knuckles across the shorter man's head. "So his noodle's been fried? That's not good. Noodles need to be boiled, not fried."

"No," Talon said. "I was able to contain the damage intended for Weasel… although it was very painful. I suspect I'll have a killer migraine in a few hours."

"Was it worth it?" Weasel asked, looking up for the first time and meeting her eyes. "Did you get the information you came for?"

She pursed her lips, wishing he hadn't asked that in front of Deadpool.

"No. Although from your mind I did get a strong sense of the telepath, there was nothing in your memories to give any clues about his whereabouts or identity. I'm afraid this was a waste of time, Deadpool. Deadpool?" She looked around for the absent man, and a moment later he stuck his masked head out of the store room.

"Hey, Weasel," he said, reappearing with a handgun in place of the rifle. "Do you know you got a kid's toy in with your real weapons?"

"It's not a kid's toy. It's a real pistol," Weasel replied. After a cursory glance at it, he returned to miserable listlessness.

Deadpool banged the weapon on the counter. "It's made of plastic."

"It's a Glock. It's made of a polymer instead of metal. That makes it lighter to carry, and harder to be picked up on metal detectors." He reeled the attributes off by rote, showing zero interest. He was, Talon realised, taking what had happened to him badly.

"Well, it looks like a toy. But it feels nice in my hand. Can I have it?"

Weasel shrugged. "Whatever. I don't care. You stole the last gun from my anyway."

"Ooh, that's right. Well, whilst you're in an apathetic mood, I'm gonna help myself to some ammo as well. Talon, can I get you a nice pair of Desert Eagles?"

"No. I don't want or need a gun. Just… go play with the weapons," she said. And he did.

"What happens now?" Weasel asked, when they were semi-alone again. Some of the colour was starting to return to his face, but she suspected he'd have trouble sleeping for a long time. He'd gotten a _much_ better feel for the telepath's mind than the pale echoes she'd picked up from his memories, and evil had a way of leaving a mark on the soul. "I mean, all this stuff, making me remember… it was for nothing, right? So how are you going to track down the guy who did this to me and make him pay for it? And what happens if he finds me first?"

"I don't know," she admitted. "But perhaps there's something I can do to help you. To make all of this go away."

"I don't want to die."

"I'm not going to kill you. But I can make you forget." Weasel shivered, and she hurried on before he could object. "I'm not talking about doing anything like what that man did to you. I won't trap your mind, I will simply erase the memory. Permanently. Even if that man comes back, even if he reads your thoughts, he will never find out that you told me about him. Everything we've discussed here today will be gone, as will your memories of Caldwell, and the false memories of the Comicon."

"Whoa whoa whoa," said Deadpool, reappearing from the store. "If you could erase Weasel's memory of Caldwell, why didn't that other telepath just do that? Why booby-trap—heheh—someone's mind and cause them pain and misery if they try to remember?"

Weasel answered before Talon got the chance.

"Because he is a complete and utter b $& #d. Because he likes to see people suffer. Why go for a clean kill when you can maim, mangle and ruin?"

"I'm rather partial to a bit of maim, mangle and ruin. They're my favourite band from the seventies."

"Weasel," said Talon, ignoring Deadpool's childish banter as she pitched her tone of voice to one more conducive to getting her own way, "you can either let me do this, or you can live with it for the rest of your life. "The choice is yours."

"Then… I suppose I'd better let you do it," he said. "If that guy comes back, I'd rather he learn nothing than discover what we've done and talked about."

"That would probably be for the best," she agreed. "Deadpool, would you mind waiting outside?"

"Aww, but I wanna watch you do Jedi mind-tricks!" She glared at him, and he grabbed another box of ammo before sulking off outside.

Alone again, Talon turned to Weasel.

"Promise me one thing," he said. "Promise me you'll find the guy who did this and make him pay."

"I will see that justice is done," she agreed.

He took a deep breath and closed his eyes. "Okay. Then I'm ready."

It took only a couple of minutes for Talon to erase the pertinent memories; for someone who had learnt to erase memories before she'd hit her teens, it literally _was_ child's play. And when the memories were gone, she put him to sleep via a hypnotic suggestion, and watched until he was curled up on the floor and snoring soundly. Then she left a pile of twenty fifty-dollar bills on the counter—a nice surprise for when he woke up—and left the building.

Wade was waiting outside, twirling his new gun around on his finger. When she closed the door behind herself he pocketed the weapon took on a more serious posture.

"At least we know Caldwell definitely _was_ here," he said, before she could speak. "And we have some intel about what we're dealing with. That's gotta be worth something, right?"

She took her pill bottle out, swallowed four because the usual two wouldn't cut it today, and glanced inside. If she kept this up, she'd run out within a few days. It was time to arrange for a delivery.

He seemed to take her silence for displeasure, and continued as she set off towards the hotel.

"You should have let me get you a gun."

"I don't need a gun."

"Everybody needs a gun."

"My most powerful weapon is my mind," she told him, hoping her stupid mind would stop hurting and let her at least get back to the hotel before releasing the inevitable waves of nausea. "A gun would only raise questions if I was caught with it. It's better that I remain unarmed."

He was blessedly silent for a few moments. Talon had questions, about Caldwell, about the telepath, about Wade's connection to them, but she was far too tired to ask.

"Fancy a boat ride?" Wade asked as the hotel came into view.

"What?"

"A boat ride. I know of a place. Where they took the mutants they were experimenting on. We can get there by boat."

"Then for God's sake, why didn't we go there first?!" she snapped. The dull throbbing pain in her head increased, spreading down her neck, making her shoulder muscles ache.

"Well, that's kinda complicated. I thought this Caldwell thing would be a more solid lead. But we could still find some info at the mutant processing facility. Err, maybe. It's the only other intel I got."

"Fine. We'll go."

"Great. We should go under the cover of nightfall. Less chance of getting spotted by the coastguard or the military or the astronauts. If we set off now—"

"Tomorrow."

"But if we went tonight—"

She whirled around, raising a single admonishing finger. "I have just done the psychic equivalent of smashing a brick wall with my skull. I am exhausted and aching in places I didn't even knew existed, and I am in desperate need of sleep before I start to suffer the mother of all migraines. You can wait for tomorrow or go on your own. Right now, I don't give a damn."

"Tomorrow it is," he acquiesced.

* * *

 _Deadpool_ _'s Note: Whoa, that was a long chapter. I hope it wasn't boring. I mean, it didn't have very much of me in it, so it was probably boring. If you thought it was boring, type it in the box below and tell the author you want more of me. Uh, not that it will make much difference, because the next chapter's already been written. Ooh, I'm in it quite a lot, too! Which will automatically make it unboring, natch._


	7. Let He Who Is Without Sin

Legacy

 _7\. Let He Who Is Without Sin  
(in which we get_ _—THIS SPOILER HAS BEEN CENSORED BY THE AUTHORISATION OF S.H.I.E.L.D.)_

* * *

 **Location: Central Pa** **—CENSORED  
New Y** **—CENSORED  
CENSORED AM EST**

Using all of his stealthy ability—

 **Stealthcraft. Let** **'s call it stealthcraft. That has a nice ring to it.**

Using all of his stealthcraft, Deadpool moved through the dense bushes, ducked beneath over-hanging trees and stepped carefully over dry crackly twigs which might snap and give away his location. Each step brought him closer. Closer to his target. When he sighted the object of his stealthcraftery, he crouched down, letting the large rhododendron hide him. She was sitting on a park bench, watching children at play, but Deadpool wasn't fooled. She hadn't come here to watch children. She had some sort of sneaky ulterior motive. Why else would she have crept out of the hotel after breakfast without telling him she was leaving?

Well, whatever foul English errand she was running, he wasn't about to let it go unchallenged. So he watched, waiting for any suspicious behaviour. For some proof that she, and MI6, were in bed with the US military. Which seemed a wholly stupid yet plausible thing. Plausible _because_ of its absurdity. After all, what better way of re-capturing Wade Wilson than tricking him into travelling to England and holding up a bank to coerce a British spy into helping him track down the very people he was hunting?

The military were sneaky like that. You could never underestimate the depths of their trickery.

But all Talon did was sit on the bench and watch kids play on the jungle gym. Even from this distance he could see the faraway look on her face, as if she was remembering some other time and place.

Rather abruptly, something changed. One of the people on the playground, a teenage babysitter keeping a watchful eye on her two young charges, approached Talon. Words were exchanged; words which Deadpool was too far away to hear. And since he hadn't yet mastered the esoteric art of lip-reading, the conversation escaped him. But after a moment, the teenage girl left, and here Deadpool found himself torn. Follow the girl, or stay and watch Talon? If Talon sensed him watching—not that he thought she _could_ , since she couldn't read his mind—then she might have sent the girl off as a decoy, to lure him away so that she could enact her plans without being observed.

In the end, his indecision was rewarded. The teenager reappeared carrying a brown paper bag, which she promptly handed to Talon. Then the girl collected the two kids from the playground and left. Talon waited a moment longer then stood up and set off through the Park.

Deadpool followed. He needed to know what was in that bag. Talon had told him she wouldn't keep MI6 secrets from him, and yet here she was, breaking her word at the first chance she got. Proving that she was as untrustworthy as he'd initially suspected her of being. She buttered him up with truths to make the lies go down easier. Like giving him a spoonful of some really sweet substance to take away the foul taste of nasty medicine.

 **English women do that all the time. Right before they fly away on their umbrellas. Well, I** **'ll show those English women that Wade Wilson won't take his spoonful of some really sweet substance lying down!**

He crept up behind her. It was suspiciously easy. He would have thought that a super-spy would have been harder to creep up on, but it wasn't until he was reaching over her shoulder and snatching the brown bag from her hands that she finally realised she wasn't alone amongst the park full of strangers. When he grabbed the bag she whirled on the spot, green eyes blazing angrily. He was suddenly glad he hadn't given her a gun.

"That's mine," she said, almost a growl. How very uncultured she sounded, when her back was up against the wall.

"Finders keepers," he told her.

"Give it to me, or… or…"

"Or what? You'll zap me with your Jedi powers? Whoops, you can't do that! You'll make me think I'm a frog or something? You can't do that either." He opened the bag, pulled out a white box and prised the lid off. "I think you'll find that it's harder than you think to fool me with your sneaky English… medicine?"

Dozens of plain white pills sat looking up at him from the box, each one offering a silent accusation. Naturally, he turned to humour.

"You do know that dealing drugs is bad, mm'kay?"

"Don't be stupid," she scoffed. "Now give me my pills or I'll head back to England."

"Not until you tell me what they're for," he said, holding them above her head, out of her reach.

He realised he'd made a mistake when she kicked him in the groin, which everybody knew was a rotten dirty move used by rotten dirty fighters. As he lowered himself to the ground, whimpering in pain, she grabbed the box and fastened it up again, taking great care not to drop any of the pills. And, when his eyes finally stopped watering, he realised she was standing over him, arms folded across her chest in the universal sign of a pissed-off woman, her green eyes harsh and calculating.

"Very well," she said. "If you're going to act like a child and force my hand, then we'll have this conversation." She looked up, seemed to realise their little spat had drawn a crowd, and snapped, "Get back to your own lives. The show's over." The crowd promptly dispersed.

"You… you kicked me," he wheezed.

"You forced me to resort to physical violence; something I detest. Now, get up, Wade. You've caused enough of a scene."

"My name isn't Wade," he objected as he slowly pushed himself to his feet, desperately wishing he could massage the feeling back into his family jewels… bitterly aware that that sort of behaviour so close to a kid's playground was inherently frowned upon. "My name's Bill. Mr Bill Beau."

"That's not your name. That's a character from the Lord of the Rings."

"Nuh-uh. It's my actual real honest-to-God name. I've never heard of Wade before. Maybe you're getting me mixed up with some other person."

"Drop the pretence. I've known who you were since before we left England."

He froze, unsure of how to proceed. Alternating thoughts of _Deny_ and _Attack_ flickered across his mind, but he dismissed them as crazy even for him.

"How?" he asked at last.

She gestured to a nearby bench and took a seat. He limped over and sat beside her… just out of kicking range. His body would heal any damage it took, but that didn't stop him feeling pain. Pricked, he would still bleed.

"The same way Weasel recognised you," she said. "You can hide your face, and you can hide your thoughts, but you can't change your voice."

"I bet I could if I tried _really_ hard. Or maybe I could throw it, so it sounds like my voice coming from somewhere else. It would seem like I'm really invisible. Or I could always—"

"Wade," she interrupted. "It's time you were honest with me."

"What about you? You were out here doing sneaky spy things! For all I knew, you were selling me out!"

"I was just collecting a drop-off of medicine," she explained, gesturing at the box.

"Then why all the subterfuge? Why make some kid fetch it for you?"

"Because I've learnt to be cautious, in my line of work. I don't like to be seen at collection points, in case they're being surveilled. I don't like to directly interact with other operatives in case my identity is made."

"What're the pills for? Are they poison? Were you going to try and poison my food or something?"

"How can I possibly poison your food when you never eat with me?"

"I'm sure you could find a way."

"The pills are for me. They are, as you initially said, medicine. I've taken them all my life, to help control my powers, but I've been taking them more often over the past year or two because I've been suffering migraines, and when I'm in pain, control is harder to find."

"What kind of medicine stops you from dreaming?" he asked, recalling what she'd told him earlier.

"It's a side-effect. I haven't had dreams since I was a little girl. Or if I have, I can never remember them afterwards."

"That must suck," Wade mused.

 **Then again,** _ **my**_ **dreams seem to be my mind** **'s way of torturing me with things I can never have, and half-remembered memories which may or may not be real. Maybe I'd be better off without those dreams. But if I didn't dream, I probably wouldn't have remembered Talon, and I'd still be trying to chase down Caldwell without any luck.**

"Now it's your turn," she said, interrupting his monologue.

"Alright. I spy with my little eye—"

"Your turn to be honest, Wade."

"Oh." He felt his heart sink. Now that he'd settled on the idea of keeping his identity secret from Talon, it was hard to move away from it. "Do I have to? Can't we just keep pretending?"

"You can't live a lie. And neither can I. We can start with something simple. Why did you put on that little pantomime, back in London? Why didn't you just come to me for help?"

"Well… I didn't know where to find you. And I wasn't sure if you'd help me. Figured asking under duress was guaranteed to give better results."

"Why did you doubt that I'd help you?"

He looked down at his gloves, which covered his tumour-ravaged skin. She didn't try to push him into answering, merely waited, a quiet presence in the background. He knew he was going to have to tell her the truth. It was the only way she would trust him. And perhaps, if she knew the truth, she'd understand why he was so driven to find Caldwell.

"Y'remember I told you that the military's been experimenting on mutants?" he asked, keeping his gaze on his gloves so he wouldn't have to see the pity in her eyes.

"Yes."

"I was one of them. They had me for years. Kept me sedated. Tied down. The things their scientists did to me… you're not even allowed to do those things to lab animals. They turned me into a weapon, and when I escaped, they hunted me. Tried to capture me. It's given me a deep distrust of authority figures. Hence why I wasn't sure if I could trust you."

He felt a hand on his shoulder, the grip soft but firm.

"I'm sorry, Wade. I can't even imagine what you've gone through, these past few years. This Caldwell person… is he one of the scientists who worked on you?"

He shook his head. "But he's tied to the military, somehow. He killed a friend of mine."

"One of your team?"

"A friend I made here, in New York, when I escaped."

"Ah. Who was she?"

"It doesn't matter. All you need to know is that Caldwell killed her and the military's protecting him. We find him, we find them."

"What about the rest of your team? Were they experimented on, too?"

"I don't know," he admitted. "The military… their final phase of making me into the perfect weapon was to erase my memory, so they could control me."

"You're amnesiac?"

"Not completely. Memories come from time to time in the form of flashes. Images, voices, smells and tastes… I see faces in my dreams of men who seem familiar to me. I think they're my team, but I suspect a lot of them are dead now. The military were harvesting mutant powers. They gave some to me, altered my DNA, but ever since I regained control of myself, most of those powers seem to have gone."

"Perhaps what they did to you give you this ability to keep telepaths out of your mind."

He shrugged. At this point, he was beyond caring.

"Is that why you wear that costume?" she asked. "To hide from the military?"

"No." He took a deep breath before continuing. "Whatever the military did to me… it gave me a form of cancer. I very nearly died. But they _also_ gave me the ability to heal my body, which stopped the cancer from becoming terminal. But it hasn't gone away. My body is still riddled with tumours. And what it's done to my skin… you wouldn't recognise me. The costume isn't to hide from the military. It's so I can walk around in public without inciting a mob."

"I'm so sorry, Wade."

"That's it?" he asked, unable to keep the bitter tone from his voice. "'I'm sorry'? No, 'I wish I could help you' or 'If only I could read your mind and erase your memories to forget how you were tortured for years'?"

"There are two types of people in this world, Wade. Those who spend their lives wishing things were different, and those who act to _make_ them different. Even if I could read your mind and erase your memories, I wouldn't be able to cure your cancer or undo what the military did to you. But I _can_ help you to expose their operation, and ensure the people involved are brought to justice."

He look into her eyes and was grateful that pity wasn't the only thing he saw. "Do you really believe in justice?" he asked. "That it exists as something other than a lie sold to Joe Public to make them believe they're protected?"

"Yes. I do. And I'm going to do everything in my power to help you bring these people to justice."

 **Probably best I don** **'t tell her that I'm not planning to stop at justice.**

"Well, we've got our work cut out for us," he said. "These people exist above the law."

She smiled, the first genuine smile he'd seen from her so far. "Then we'll just have to bring them down a few notches first. Yesterday, after we finished with Weasel, you said something about a boat trip to some mutant processing facility?"

"Yeah. We'll need to take a road-trip to Pennsylvania, then… procure a boat."

"Alright. Why don't we head back to the hotel, get some lunch, and you can give me the run-down on this facility?"

"Umm… yeah. I'd prefer to eat alone. No offence. The sight of my face tends to put people off their food."

"And you think I, of all people, would judge somebody on their outward appearance?"

"Dunno. But I still prefer to eat alone."

"Alright," she shrugged. "Have it your way."

They set off back to the hotel, and he spent the journey telling her about his initial moments of waking on Three Mile Island, about the devastation wrought there, and how he'd wandered for three days, hiding from the salvage crews, trying to remember who he was. She listened in silence as he described his swim across the river, and his trip via truck to New York. She asked no questions during his hazily-remembered description of the facility before it had been partially destroyed, and only as they reached the hotel door did she finally speak up.

"Do you think the military will still be there?"

"I don't know. But even if they're not using it as a base of operations anymore, they might still be watching it. We're less likely to be seen if we infiltrate by night."

They stepped into the hotel, and Deadpool _just_ had time to register the unusually large number of suits present before one of them stepped towards Talon and produced a pair of handcuffs.

"Agent Talon?" the man said. "The Director has some questions for you. Are you going to come quietly?"

From the corner of his eye, Deadpool saw several of the suited men and women step forward. When he saw the tasers clipped to their suits, he tensed himself, ready to attack.

"I'll go quietly," Talon said, her voice still calm and untroubled.

"Your friend, too."

"He has nothing to do with anything."

"It's not my decision, ma'am."

Talon turned to Wade, her eyes trying to convey a message her mind could not. "Don't fight them," she said. "This is all a misunderstanding. I'll have it cleared up in no time."

He wanted to ignore her, to fight them all, but something in her expression held him back. As he watched her hold out her hands and accept the cuffs, he realised something: she'd been expecting this. She wasn't at all surprised by their change in circumstances.

So he submitted himself to a pair of handcuffs, just as she had, and it took every once of self control he possessed not to slide the blades from his arms and kill them all. A tiny, paranoid voice in his head told him this was a mistake, that he'd live to regret going quietly, that once they had him they'd never let him go. But Talon's expression had asked him to trust her, and after everything he'd done to bring her here, he felt he owed her that much.

o - o - o - o - o

It was hard to judge the passage of time when you had a dark bag over your head, but Talon guestimated the car in which she'd been bundled into had been travelling for forty-five minutes. The three SHIELD agents in the vehicle with her were full of nervous thoughts; they were afraid of her. The Director had told them to use _extreme caution_ when fetching her in, and they weren't entirely sure what that meant.

By reading their minds, she knew that Wade was in a second car, following closely behind, and she knew that he was cuffed and made to wear a bag over his head, too. She also knew that he was driving the agents with him to distraction with his incessant chatter. One of the agents was considering tasering him just to get him to shut up.

The car eventually stopped, and Talon employed a little telepathy to look through the eyes of one of her captors. The building they had pulled up beside was a large, unmarked warehouse with a roller shutter door covering the garage, and a smaller side-door secured by a card-reader and numerical keypad.

When the vehicle stopped, Talon was led out of the car, a hand on her arm guiding her across the tarmac and towards the door. She watched through her escort's eyes as he slid his card through the reader then typed an access code into the pad. A flashing green LED and a low-pitched hum indicated his ID was accepted, and the door clicked open automatically.

She was directed into the building and marched down a corridor. She heard the footsteps behind her turn off in a different direction as Wade was taken to a different place within the building. Hopefully the agents leading him would treat him well; given his background with authority figures, a prolonged incarceration did not bode well for his health, or for theirs.

After a minute or so of walking down twisting, turning corridors no doubt designed to throw off her sense of direction, she was led into an open room and the bag was removed from her head. She blinked several times, trying to clear the fuzziness from her eyes, and as the agents withdrew she discovered she was alone except for a woman who was setting up some sort of machine on a table. In front of the table was an austere metal chair. The only source of light was a single bulb suspended above the chair, which meant shadows clung to every corner of the room. All in all, it looked rather ominous.

"Where am I?" she asked, when her observation of the room revealed nothing of note.

The woman barely even slowed in her task of assembling the machine. She merely looked up, peering at Talon over the rim of her spectacles, and answered as she worked.

"A secure SHIELD facility."

"What, no helicarrier? I'm disappointed; I've been looking forward to seeing one of your flying tin-cans for years."

"Feel free to lodge a complaint with the Director."

"I will," Talon smiled. This was the only field agent Talon had encountered today who wasn't afraid of her. Out of respect for the woman's lack of fear, Talon resisted the urge to read her mind.

"Hello, Harriet."

She whirled around and came face to face with the man responsible for her capture. Tall and muscular despite his age, he dominated the room via his quiet, charismatic presence. Seeing him in person brought back a flood of memories, most of them pleasant. _Very_ pleasant.

"Nicholas. Your hospitality leaves something to be desired. I didn't get a mint on my pillow. In fact, I didn't even get a pillow. Expect a strongly-worded letter from me when I get home."

"Glib as ever, I see," he said. There was no humour in his voice. None of the warmth she remembered so well. "Some things never change."

"And some things do. I thought you wouldn't start looking for me for at least a couple of weeks."

"And I know you well enough to know that when you're giving me two weeks' notice that you've got business in the US, you're already en route."

"Well, congratulations, you found me after only two days. I must be getting careless in my old age."

A brief flicker of a smile tugged at his lips, but there was no warmth in it, nor in his good eye as he subjected her to an assessing gaze.

"To be fair, your initial assumed identity went unnoticed. Travelling as a whole Russian family; very clever."

She perched on the edge of the table. "So how did you find me?"

"I recalled your penchant for the finer things in life, so I checked recent arrivals at the most prestigious hotels in the country and cross-referenced them with meals ordered in nearby restaurants. You had oxtail soup for lunch yesterday, followed by truffles, and a non-alcoholic cocktail. I then traced your credit card back to a series of purchases earlier in the morning; the one-hundred dollar bottle of sunscreen you bought was a dead give-away."

She shrugged. "A girl's gotta look after her complexion. Do you have any idea how damaging sunlight is?"

He folded his arms across his chest, subconsciously placing yet another barrier between them.

"Who's the guy you're travelling with?"

"Some idiot I picked up and manipulated into doing my bidding when I arrived in the country."

"Why?"

"Come on, Nicholas, you know how the game is played. You always need a fall-guy. Some easily led fool to be left holding the smoking gun on the grassy knoll."

"I don't suppose you're going to make this easy and tell me why you're here?"

"I'm looking for a doctor."

"A doctor?"

"For my migraines."

He let out a deep sigh and shook his head. "Don't you ever get tired of maintaining the illusion?"

Talon felt one questioning eyebrow rise of its own volition. "Illusion?"

"That nothing affects you. That you're never disturbed or worried… that you can remain calm and flippant no matter how bad things get."

"That's not an illusion. And this," she said, gesturing around the room, "this isn't 'bad'. This is merely a misunderstanding. I'm sure we'll have it cleared up in no time."

"Perhaps you'll think differently after your polygraph test."

She shrugged. "Doubtful. I test well."

"This isn't the kind of test you can cheat on. Your telepathy won't help you now. The polygraph we use is more advanced than those available to standard law enforcement agencies. You might be able to fool another mind, but you won't be able to fool a machine."

"Then perhaps we should make a small wager. I fail your polygraph test, and I'll submit peacefully to whatever judicial punishment you see fit. If I pass, you owe me dinner. Consider it compensation for false arrest and wasting my time."

"Are you kidding?"

"I don't know. I'm deep in some secret SHIELD bunker waiting to be strapped into a chair and hooked up to a machine which will determine whether I'm guilty of a crime you're convinced I committed despite all evidence to the contrary, and I haven't even been read my rights. Do you think I'm joking?"

"You're not under arrest. Not yet."

"That doesn't exactly inspire confidence."

"We're ready," said the woman who was setting up the machine.

"Can I have my pills?"

"After your test," Fury said.

She tutted."Denying medicine to a sick woman. Doesn't that breach the Geneva Convention?"

"We're not at war, so no."

"You've changed, Nicholas."

"Perhaps you didn't know me as well as you thought."

"Perhaps. So, now that you're withholding my medication, should we begin?"

She sat in the chair and tried to remain relaxed as the bio pads were placed in a row across her forehead. The machine was switched on, an electrical hum filling the air. She wasn't at all surprised when Nick took the second seat behind the table; he'd want to direct the questioning himself. For him, this was personal.

"You will be asked a series of questions, to which you will answer truthfully. You will answer the questions as either yes or no. Your results will be recorded and examined by a trained technician. Do you understand?"

"Perfectly."

The polygraph machine began scratching out a line on the graph paper.

"Yes or no," he reminded her.

"Duly noted."

"We'll start with the control questions," he said. "Is your name Harriet Sparks?"

"Yes."

"Are you thirty-two years old?"

"Yes."

 _Scratch-scratch-scratch_ , went the polygraph.

"Do you work as a secret agent for the SIS?"

"Yes."

"Is it your intention to lie on any of these questions?"

"No."

 _Scratch-scratch-scratch._

"Have you ever travelled to America?"

"Yes."

"Have you undertaken covert activities on behalf of your government whilst in America?"

"Yes."

"Have you ever killed another human being?"

"Yes."

 _Scratch-scratch-scratch._

"Have you ever been to the Maison Eternity brothel in Washington?"

"I have never been to a brothel."

Talon felt her heartbeat, steady in her chest.

"Answer yes or no. Have you ever been to Maison Eternity?"

"No."

"Were you in Washington the night Senator Nielson was murdered?"

"Yes."

"Did you kill the Senator?"

"I have never killed a Senator."

"Yes or no, Harriet," Nick sighed. "Did you kill the Senator?"

 _Scratch-scratch-scratch._

"No."

"Were you indirectly responsible for the Senator's death?"

"No."

"Do you know who is responsible for the Senator's death?"

"Yes."

"Was it somebody working for your government?"

"No."

He leant forward, fixing her with his single eye. "Who was it?"

"I thought this game only had closed questions in it?" she quipped.

"Just answer. Consider it the bonus round. Who killed the Senator?"

"The prostitute, of course. Everybody knows that."

He contained his anger well, merely folding his arms across his chest and leaning back in his chair. "That's all the questions I have," he said, and the machine operator switched the device off.

Talon took a deep breath, felt all of the tension leave her body. All she wanted now was her bed… and a couple of pills to relieve her stress-related headache.

"Can I have my medication now?" she asked.

He tossed the bottle over to her, and she caught it one-handed.

"Unhook her from the machine and fetch her a glass of water," Nick told the operator. "I'll be waiting outside."

o – o – o – o – o

It was exactly seventeen paces from one end of the corridor to the other, but it felt more like seventy. Nick Fury's thoughts weighed him down. Each step felt like a hike. After a solid forty-eight hours of wakefulness, he knew he'd need to sleep soon. Even chemically enhanced super-soldiers needed _some_ rest.

The door of the testing room opened, and the operator stepped out. Just before the door closed he caught sight of Talon, seated in the chair with her eyes closed and a half-empty glass of water in her hand. She looked as tired as he felt, and the part of him that still cared about her regretted putting her through this. But the part of him, the stronger and larger part, which cared about truth and justice and protecting citizens from threats whether they be mutant or otherwise, had needed to do this. Needed to know, once and for all.

Some betrayals could never be forgiven.

The door clicked closed, and the operator turned to face him. "I have the results," she said.

"And?"

"She passed. Every question."

He felt his heart sink, the weight on his shoulders growing heavier. The Maison Murder, as the press had called it at the time, had seemed an open and shut case. Police investigators had found the dead Senator supine on a bed in the brothel with a bullet put point-blank through his skull, the woman who'd killed him equally dead on the floor by a self-inflicted shot. Her lips had still been around the weapon's muzzle when she hit the floor. Cases didn't get much easier than that.

Only, a couple of days later, CCTV footage in the airport had clocked Talon leaving the country, and as soon as he saw that fuzzy image of her face, he _knew_ , without any shadow of a doubt, that she had been involved. He'd thrown SHIELD's resources at the Senator's chequered past, and been rewarded with threats of blackmail and incidents of political bribery. Perhaps the Senator had thought there would be no repercussions for threatening to reveal the British ambassador's involvement in the very activity the Senator himself had died as a participant of.

Requests to have Talon extradited for questioning had been denied, and she'd never been back to the US since that incident. Until now.

"Are you sure?" he asked.

"Positive. There were minor incongruities on the questions where she answered using the incorrect format, but when you re-asked them she passed without doubt."

"Based on this evidence, would you say it's a reasonable assumption that she wasn't involved in the Senator's murder."

"I would say that, yes." The operator bit the corner of her lip for a moment, then continued. "There was one little thing which struck me as odd. I wasn't going to mention it, because it happened before the test even started, but…"

"Spit it out," he ordered.

"See here?" She held up the graph paper, displaying a series of squiggly lines at the start of the session. After a few centimetres the lines merged into one and became much less squiggly.

"A lie?" he asked.

"No. I'm not exactly sure about this, because I've never seen it before, but if I had to hazard a guess… it looks like right at the very start of the test, at the moment I switched the machine on, there was a second set of biometric data recorded by the machine."

"What does this mean?"

"That our machine had a minor hiccough when I started it up and, very briefly, registered the subject as two people. Maybe it indicates an underlying fault with the equipment. We could bring in another polygraph and test her again."

"Don't bother. I get the feeling the results would be exactly the same."

"So you'll be letting her go, sir? The machine proves that she wasn't involved in the murder."

"No. The machine proves that she doesn't _believe_ she wasn't involved in the murder."

"Sir?" she asked, an expression of confusion painted across her face.

"She's a mutant, Alice. She could have fooled the machine."

"I was advised of her telepathic abilities, sir. The machine is not like an organic mind; it cannot be influenced by psychic powers regardless of their source."

He ran his thumb along his chin, grunting silently in his head when he realised it had been two days since his last shave.

"Talon also has the ability of audio-hypnotic suggestion."

"Again, this is a machine. It doesn't read voices, sir, it reads heart-rate, breathing rate, perspiration and muscle impulses. Things beyond the conscious control."

"Beyond the conscious control of you or I, Alice." A small, humourless smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. "I always underestimated Talon's power of suggestion. Figured her telepathy was the ability to watch out for. But maybe I had it backwards. Is it possible for somebody to hypnotise themselves into believing they didn't do something, even if they did?"

"I don't know, sir. People aren't exactly my forté. But if she _has_ hypnotised herself into believing she didn't kill the Senator, then I don't see any way of proving it. Perhaps one day we'll have machines which can measure the subconscious thoughts of a person, but right now that technology doesn't exist."

"You've tested a lot of people. What does your instinct tell you, Alice?"

"That I'm glad I'm not you, sir." She folded the polygraph results up and slipped them back into her clipboard. "What should I do with her?"

"Hold her for now. I want to question the man she was brought in with."

"Very well, sir."

He left Alice to keep an eye on Talon and walked the short distance to the second interrogation room. When he stepped inside he found two doctors and three armed agents there, as well as the machine operator. One of the agents noticed Nick's arrival, and made her way over.

"Agent Tuft," he greeted her.

"Sir. Benny's just finished analysing the results."

"And?"

She collected the polygraph results from the desk and presented them to him. "Claims his name's Luke Skywalker, and passed that one when asked. Also claimed he's Canadian, and passed that too. Failed when he tried to claim he's never killed anybody. Also failed when he answered 'no' to 'have you ever stolen?'. But when we asked if it was his intention to lie on this test, the machine just went crazy and brought back a non-result. It's all very strange, sir."

He merely grunted an acknowledgement. It was entirely possible that Talon had scrambled the guy's mind so badly that he had no idea what he was saying. If she'd got him believing that his name really was Luke Skywalker, then the polygraph would be damned useless.

"I'd like to ask him a few questions myself," he said.

"Um, I'm sorry sir, but that won't be possible."

"Why not?"

"Well, after the polygraph, he wouldn't stop talking. So Agent Jones injected his lower jaw with one of the experimental neurotoxins the scientists have been working on. Needed three shots of it just to shut him up. The, err, suspect is no longer capable of speech. The docs say the effects will wear off in a few hours."

He sighed, and made a mental note to assign Agent Jones to something more menial for the next few months.

"Have we any idea who he is?"

Tuft pulled a face of disgust. "We tried running his prints, but he seems to have some sort of skin disease which has distorted his print pattern beyond recognition. When we ran his DNA, the computer got a virus."

"What?"

"A virus, sir. Apparently some sort of worm which infected our systems. Good job we weren't on the helicarrier; there's no telling what the virus would have done to the main computer. The computer geeks are working on getting it out of the system, but they say it's pretty sophisticated."

The mystery deepened. On the one hand he had Talon, who he was certain had committed more than one crime whilst in the US over the past few years and who had avoided coming back here ever since her last 'visit'. And on the other hand he had a man who couldn't be identified and whose very DNA triggered the invasion of a virus or worm when the attempt was made. Just what the hell had he stumbled onto?

"Who could do this?" he asked, hoping she would confirm his own suspicions.

"It's a pretty small list, sir. CIA, FBI… NASA. My guess, though, would be the NSA, but we won't know for sure until the computer forensics guys can stop the virus and track its creator."

He closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. Over forty-eight hours of detailed investigative work, and he had nothing. His main suspect in a murder case had passed a polygraph with flying colours, and her possible accomplice defied the polygraph machine and attempts at identification. Even if he arrested Talon for the crime he knew she was guilty of, and even if her government's requests to have her returned were rejected, no jury in its right mind would convict her based solely on Nick Fury's gut feeling.

"We'll have to let them go," he said.

"Are you sure, sir?"

"This was a long shot at best. Talon knows the laws of this country as well as I do. If we try to arrest her she'll be entitled to counsel, and her government will kick up a storm. We'll be suffering the diplomatic fallout for years. Much as I hate to say it, she's covered her bases too well. I doubt she would have come back here otherwise." He shook his head, felt a wry smile pull at his lips. "She's toying with me. Trying to show me that she's always going to be one step ahead."

He should have known. Should have realised when she'd called him that she wouldn't risk coming back without making sure she couldn't be traced back to Senator Nielson's murder. She had made him look a fool in front of his team, and shown once again that she'd always known him better than he had known her.

o - o - o - o - o

Outside the SHIELD bunker, two men waited with dark, head-sized hessian sacks. Talon looked up at the starless night sky, watching the ghostly grey clouds pass by. After a few minutes of waiting, Nicky Fury appeared from the building, leading Wade by the elbow.

"So," she said, facing her former lover, ignoring the cadre of agents assembled behind him. It was easy to ignore everybody else, when you were standing in front of Nick Fury. Other people just tended to fade into the background. "About that dinner you owe me…"

"I'll let you know when I'm free.

He was a terrible liar.

"These agents," he said, gesturing at those behind him, "will take you back to your hotel. We'll be watching your activities closely."

She glanced at Wade; he was uncharacteristically silent.

"We won't charge you for the peace and quiet," Nick said. Wade made some incoherent mumbling noises and pointed to his mouth. "It'll wear off in a few hours."

"It's been good to see you again, Nick."

"You're a terrible liar, Harriet."

She stepped forward and lifted her hand, brushing the back of her fingers against his sandpaper cheek. At the same time she slid her thoughts into his mind, for the first time broaching the reason for their separation. The reason for his mistrust of her. The _real_ reason why he'd brought her in for questioning.

" _I didn't steal your secrets, Nicholas."_ He narrowed his good eye at her, and she continued. _"The weakness in your helicarrier's power distribution system. The attack which brought one down and killed twelve people. That wasn't me."_

" _Then who was it?"_ he shot back.

" _The Russians? The Germans? I truly don't know. Please, forgive yourself. You aren't to blame for their deaths. You didn't kill them by letting your guard down and allowing me into your life."_

" _Why are you telling me this now? After all this time?"_

" _Because you wouldn't have believed me, before now. You were too angry. Too hurt."_ She smiled, and pulled her fingers away from his face, already missing the brief contact. _"The simple truth of it is, I never needed to jump into your bed to know all of your secrets. Your mind is not that complex, Nicholas. Whoever stole your data is still out there, probably laughing their ass off at the wedge they drove between us. Watch your friends, as well as your enemies."_

" _And which are you, Harriet?"_

" _Me? I'm neither. But I could go either way. Please stay out of my way, Nicholas. I promise you that what I'm doing here is in the best interests of your people, as well as mine. I'm not here to assassinate anybody, or steal secrets; I'm here to right a wrong, and I can guarantee that if you stop me from carrying out my task, you'll be adding more deaths to your conscience."_

" _I wish I could believe you."_

She gave him the best genuine smile she could manage through her growing headache. _"Then I'll make you another promise. When all of this is over, and the crimes I am investigating have been exposed, if you buy me that dinner you owe me, I'll tell you everything."_

He looked at her, and she could see him weighing up his options, trying to figure out the puzzle hidden in her words. In the end, he simply thought, _"We'll see,"_ and turned to his men. "Take them back to their hotel."

Talon watched him until her view was rudely obscured by a dark bag. And as the engine was started, and she was driven away, she sent him one last thought.

" _It's too late for us to go back, but perhaps, in time, we can learn to be friends."_

Her thought was met with silence, but then, she hadn't expected anything else from him.

o - o - o - o - o

Five hours later, Talon stepped into Wade's unlocked room carrying a glass of water. Her pills had, thankfully, taken care of her headache before it could become a full-blown migraine, and she was feeling somewhat cheerful about the positive outcome of their encounter with SHIELD.

Wade was sitting on the bed, his posture speaking of dejection. Talon gave him the glass of water. He poured it over the top of his head.

"Thanks," he said. "That's much better."

"Poor Wade. What on earth did they do to you?"

"Injected me with some neuroinhibitortransmittertoxicollywhatchamacallit. They made me not speak!"

"I'm sorry. What they did to you was entirely out of order."

"What was that all about, anyway? Who were those guys? And why did the scowly guy seem to have it in for you?"

"Nick Fury is the Director of SHIELD, and he thinks I had something to do with the death of a Senator who was blackmailing one of the British ambassadors a few years ago."

"So how'd you kill him?"

"I didn't. The prostitute he was screwing at the time shot him point-blank in the head."

Wade scratched his chin thoughtfully. "Huh. Why'd she do that?"

"Because the Senator was a piece of scum who publically spouted crap about the values of family and integrity and society blah blah blah but secretly went around bribing and blackmailing people, and engaging in all sorts of debauchery. He was a hypocrite, and the world is a better place for his death."

"I see, I see. And this prostitute killed him then reeled out a heart-felt confession?"

"No, she killed herself. Classic murder–suicide."

"Huh. Why'd she do that?"

"She had daddy-issues."

"Sounds plausible. So why'd this Nick Fury guy think _you_ were involved?"

"Because I was in the country at the time."

"And that's the only reason?"

"Yes."

"Because from the vibes I was getting, it kinda seemed a lot more personal than that."

She sighed. Damn Wade and his stupid observations. "That's a long story."

"Ooh, I like long stories!"

"Also very boring."

"Nonsense. Long stories are always filled with juicy topics like sex and violence and monkey-butlers."

"There were no monkey-butlers."

"So tell me," he said, in a wheedling tone of voice. "You're the one who's big on sharing secrets, after all. And it's not like we can do anything else tonight, since your a-hole boyfriend kept us too long in his stupid secret base. Tell you what, we could do it as a flash-back."

"Flash-back?" she asked skeptically.

"Yeah. You just tell your story, and leave the rest to me."

* * *

 _Deadpool_ _'s Note: Cue flash-back. It doesn't have me in it, but there's plenty of sex and violence and monkey-butlers._

… _Okay, there are no monkey butlers. But pretend there are. It will make the flash-back SO much cooler._


End file.
